Fuel For The Fire

hillarybain — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 18:08:43 +0000

Women refugees in eastern Chad are forced to risk robbery and rape in order to gather firewood for cooking

EASTERN CHAD -- There used to be trees here on the desert edge of eastern Chad, where almost a quarter-million Sudanese refugees are currently camping out. They are Darfuris who made it across the border. Now they live in sprawling tent cities 20 times the size of any of the surrounding Chadian villages.

The refugees aren’t really supposed to leave the camps. But early every morning a brightly coloured train of women and girls can be seen slowly winding its way from the cluster of canvas tents. Some have donkeys, some carry babies, all of them have a long walk ahead.

They are searching for firewood. Food, water, sanitation and schooling are all provided in the camps, but no one has taken on the responsibility of providing the refugees with fuel for cooking. And all of the food rations provided to the refugees by the World Food Programme – dried beans, wheat flour and the like – require cooking before they’re even the least bit edible. With an average of seven mouths to feed in each family, some of these women will walk 40 kilometres before they find enough dead branches and fallen twigs to last a few days.

They are lucky if they make it home with their haul. Far from the camps, often wandering alone in the brush, these women and girls become targets for angry locals who want to protect the meager wood supply for themselves. The women are threatened, beaten, robbed and raped. It is one of the gravest security threats for refugees in this region.

Here, collecting wood is considered women’s work because it is part of the process of preparing the food. Men – even the husbands and fathers of women raped during firewood collection – insist that they cannot search for the wood themselves, or even accompany the women, because it would be shameful and embarrassing. The women have a different explanation: they say if the men encountered local villagers in the bush, someone would certainly get killed. So the women and girls continue to leave the camps, and to face the risks.

Within the camps, aid agencies and women’s refugee committees are trying to find ways to reduce wood consumption. It is an effort not only to reduce the threat of violence, but also to conserve a scarce resource and to ease tensions between refugees and the local population. The aid organizations have started to distribute fuel-efficient stoves that burn much less wood than the traditional three-stone open fire used for generations in this part of the world. But a lot of the refugee women are suspicious of these new technologies. They aren’t sure how to use them, and they don’t trust that the food will end up tasting very good.

One such alternative is the solar cooker. It looks like an open cardboard box, lined on the inside with tin foil. Place a kettle at the point where the angles of reflected sunlight all meet, and you’ve got hot water for tea in 15 minutes – as long as the sun is high and bright.

Another option is an oven made of dried mud. It takes a few months for the mud to harden, and eventually it crumbles back into clods of dirt. But the materials are readily available, and when it’s working well it burns about half as much wood as a traditional open fire.

Among refugee women, the most popular alternative so far is a sheet metal contraption called the Save80. On average, it uses 80 per cent less wood than a traditional fire. Ten grams of wood – a mere handful of twigs – is enough to prepare a pot of rice. That means a woman who used to collect wood twice a week now only goes out twice a month.

And there’s another big selling point: you can use the Save80 to make boule.

Boule is the wildly popular dish eaten two to three times a day by just about every family in this region. It’s a viscous starchy glob, usually made from pounded millet that is boiled and thickened with flour. Everyone in the family gathers around the boule, reaching in with their fingers for a clump that can then be dipped into a sauce of gombo or green beans.

Boule is a staple and a comfort food. It can even be made out of the unfamiliar offerings in the WFP food rations distributed monthly in the camps. For those who find themselves living in tents far from their homeland, something familiar for supper can provide a shade of normalcy among all the loss and uncertainty. Now, with the fuel-efficient stoves, refugees are eating it every day, though they still face the risks of wood collection once or twice a month.

How to make a simple boule

Boil rice (or milled corn or millet) in a pot of water until it is pasty and the grains lose their shape.

Continue on low heat even after the water has boiled off.

Add a few spoonfuls of flour (wheat, millet, sorghum, whatever is available).

Stir slowly and deliberately with a big spoon or wooden paddle. This requires a folding or pounding motion and a lot of arm strength. When it’s well mixed, add another several spoonfuls of flour and keep stirring.

When the boule reaches desired consistency, empty it into a bowl. Swing the bowl back and forth so that the boule takes on the round shape of the bowl.

Turn it onto a plate, making a warm mound.

Eat with fingers, dipping each bite into a sauce made of gombo or green beans, or mutton with sorel or spinach.

Learning to use the Save80 stove

Making tea with a solar cooker

hillarybain — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 18:02:00 +0000

A solar cooker heats up a pot of tea in 15 minutes

Learning to use the Save80 stove

hillarybain — Tue, 02 Jan 2007 17:56:56 +0000

Darfuri refugees learn to assemble a stove that uses 80 per cent less fuel than traditional cooking methods.

The Dominion - Chad

Fuel For The Fire

Making tea with a solar cooker

Learning to use the Save80 stove