Web link

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Tuesday, June 25, 2013

Stove craziness :)

Today we are still working on the final bill of materials and trying to get everything ordered.  Last night we were up until well past midnight recalculating the number of bricks we need because we were told that are a different size!

Yesterday afternoon we bought a lot of the tools we will need to build the stoves, as the community members don't have any tools.

We now have the bill of materials finalized and it is a busy time calling suppliers. As I would expect it is a non trivial matter to get all the supplies for 89 stoves to a remote community. Sometimes the shipping is more then the cost of goods.

I have had a gut issue for the past few days, but Grapefruit seed extract fixed it !  I am happy for natural cures to bad gut bugs.

It took me 4 tries to get a new cell phone SIM card (cell phone service is a monopoly, owned by the richest guy in the world).  The first time we went to TelCel they said they didn't have any SIM cards and come back in a hour of so,  We went back but no SIM's, We almost went through the same thing today. Trip 1 on card, trip 2, they have the card and it took 5 minutes to get it and get the phone working!!  Customer service doesn't matter!

Saturday, June 22, 2013

After a long day we are in D. F.

Finally made it to Mexico City! It took 3 hours to get through passport control, and Customs! Our flight landed at about 2:40, and I was 4 pm by the time we got to our hotel!

We then took a good walk to grab some Dinner. I know I will sleep hard tonight, after getting up at 2:30 am for the 5am flight from Seattle.

Friday, June 14, 2013

Operations and planning for building 89 new clean cookstoves

Working hard to come up with a bill of materials for 89 cookstoves! 

The list has to include all the tools and disposable items! IE we have to assume that the family)s) have no supplies, or tools that are needed to build the stove. This no easy task!

The list includes items like duct tape, masking tape, cement mixing trays, hammers, tin snips rubber gloves... 

The challenge is to estimate how many of the building supplies can be shared.  In three of the communities 4-5 stoves will be built at the same time, however in one community 10 will be build together at once, so sharing tools becomes more difficult.  And everything has to be ordered and shipped in as the local suppliers can not handle the large quantities for this building project.

Monday, June 10, 2013

NEWS FLASH-- Gearing up to build 98 cookstoves in the rain forest of Northern Oaxaca

We are off to Oaxaca to install 98 clean cookstoves (June 22- Aug 12).

The challenge is coming up with a complete bill of materials and tools required, as we have to assume the communities have no supplies or TOOLS to build the stoves.

This includes things like; duck tape, measuring tapes, screwdrivers..... The nearest hardware store is 2-3 hours away, so one can not just "run over to" the store for parts and supplies!