June 14- Success!

There is still hope for me yet. I was in fact able to boil water using the biodigester stove. It was a huge relief. However, I had to alter the testing protocols a little bit, but I will justify them in my write up. For instance, a lid is in fact needed in order to boil water. Without the lid, the heat is not sufficiently trapped and the stove does not have enough fire power to overcome the heat loss and boil the water. This is okay though because I am just going to merge two testing protocols together. One is the water boiling test and the other is the cooking test. The only difference between the two is that I the cooking test uses cultural practices. Then, instead of cooking food, I am just going to boil water. It is much simpler.

After I completed my first successful water boiling test, Ubania, Alvaro’s wife, called and asked if I wanted to go shopping with her in La Trinidad for a couple of hours. I met her in the office, and we took a taxi to a fabric store. She then told me that I needed to pick out fabric to buy because her mom wanted to make me a dress for my birthday. Her mom is a dress maker in San Isidro. Ubania also picked out fabric because we actually have the same birthday, so her mom is going to make her a new dress too. Then, we went back to San Isidro where her mom took my measurements and showed me some of the beautiful dresses that she has made. She told me that both dresses would even be ready by Monday!