school and cookstove

our research is centered in mayange, rwanda, which is a "millennium village", part of the UN millennium project. the aim of the project is eliminating world poverty, food insecurity, and improving health by the year 2015 (how's that going?) by funding demonstration villages through africa as models for combating these problems. mayange was a center of the 1994 genocides and was one of the most depressed areas in rwanda, with rampant famine and poverty, but is now quite stable and producing a surplus of food, which is where our research comes in. in our first days we visited a number of schools where fuel-efficient cookstoves were installed with funding through the project.


the simple, spartan classrooms are deceiving because the curriculum is rigorous and is now taught in english. rwanda, originally a belgian colony, was a francophone country but the very progressive president, Paul Kagame, has mandated english as the second language.



latrines for the students

taking water samples from the rainwater collection cistern

outdoor lectures on water cycle. this was a primary school lesson



fuel efficient stoves and maize (corn) ugali (dough-like filler) for student lunch

traditional cookstove, wood intensive and smoky

discussing the performance of stoves with headmaster

sampling cooking water from the utility tap, which is intermittent at best. water must be stored to weather the approaching dry season