The Maasai of Tanzania

Maasai homes are very smoky and dark.  Smoky interiors are a problem in much of rural Africa and the World Health Organization estimates that there are one and a half million deaths per year from indoor air pollution.   The Maasai, with little ventilation in their homes and an open fire for cooking and heating, have the most severe indoor pollution problem seen anywhere in Africa.   The problem is especially worrying since new mothers and their newborns are kept indoors for up to six months after the birth.   It is sad to continue with this narrative, but we must; because of the problems caused by Female Genital Mutilation, the Maasai generally under-nourish expectant mothers so that the babies will be small and easier to deliver.   So the babies kept in dark and smoky houses are starting out at a nutritional and developmental disadvantage already.

To address this public health problem, we are working with local activists to encourage the use of and provide fuel efficient and vented wood stoves in remote communities.  The development of such stoves is a popular type of project and not original with us, of course, but we have linked the stove improvement work with providing solar powered lighting and cell phone charging systems—if the local people install efficient and pollution-decreasing stoves using their own resources, then for every four stoves, we will provide one household scale solar energy system at no further cost to them.  Teams we train in the villages have already installed hundreds of these sustainable and renewable energy systems are in remote areas of Zanzibar, Eritrea, Senegal, and Ghana.

The idea, then, is to encourage the adoption of fuel-efficient, non-polluting stoves using the dual incentive of improving indoor air and providing electrical power for other uses.  We help them find good stove designs exploiting local materials and local expertise and make sure the stoves can be produced for less than $10 each.  We then estimate that the decrease in green house gas emissions over the lifetime of four improved stoves is worth the price of one solar system.   So the people are earning their electrical systems by helping combat global warming at the same time they improve their health, their children’s health, decrease women’s labor in the gathering of fuel-wood, and conserve wood in their environment.

For the work with the Maasai we have partnered with Aang Serian, an outstanding and progressive Maasai NGO based in Arusha and the Maasai village of Eluwai.  In October, we installed a demonstration solar energy system in a house in Eluwai, and have introduced this combined stove and solar project to four Maasai villages in the Monduli area.   The people in these villages are very excited.   Across the board, traditionalists and progressives alike are enthusiastic about having electric light and cell phone charging right in their homes.   (Once installed, the solar systems require little care—only a motorcycle battery has to be maintained, which could be a modest business opportunity for a resourceful citizen.)   At this time, we are working to get the final version of a practical stove design that can be built mostly with the bricks that are produced by a local Maasai craftsman.

But beyond these clear benefits, the project, introduced by a respected local NGO, will help provide a new arena for open discussion of other practices that are terribly important and not directly tied to light and smoke; most urgently being the health issues related to their prenatal and postnatal practices and their widespread imposition of Female Genital Mutilation.  This project, based on a non-controversial experience with better technology and introducing improvements that literally lighten the atmosphere, will expand opportunities for and the legitimacy of discussions of the more troubling and controversial cultural practices that must be dealt with sensitively and must be confronted by the diverse Maasai community.