My brother and I have been down here with Tammey and David almost three months now. One of the projects we did in our time being down here were rocket stoves.  The people here call them fogons.
The rocket stoves are a project Tammey and David decided to start up to help the health of the women down here in Mazumiapan and neighboring villages. They all cook over open fires down here so they’re constantly breathing in the fumes and smoke. Doing this two to three times a day really starts to get detrimental to their health. So the idea of a rocket stove is to eliminate most of the smoke and give them a healthier environment to cook in. Plus it provides a hotter fire with a more concentrated heat. Their original stove are these big blocks in the shape of a horseshoe. The rocket stove is compilation of 17 bricks stacked onto of one another in a shape of a cube. It’s a very different design, but healthier.

Now onto Patti. Her and her husband Elias were two of the most inviting people upon coming down here. They have been for Tammey and David as well. We decided to do a project for her and her family.  Being down here where it rains a lot, there’s tons of flooding. Every time it would rain, the area where Patti would cook would flood and get all muddy. It wasn’t an ideal area to be cooking in. So we went ahead and bought the materials needed to cement in the kitchen, plus a little walkway from the back door of their house to the kitchen. While working on the kitchen we noticed that the area they used to shower in was very public. Pretty much a little patch of rocks and some big flour bags strung up as curtains. So again we went ahead and bought the materials needed to give them a more private shower. We cemented in the floor and bought some building blocks built walls, and got some material for a nice shower curtain. Now she has a dry area to cook for her family, a healthier fogon and a private area for her and her family to shower in.

Kyle & Nik Martin