I've installed my last stove. The owners asked me in December to hold delivery until their new house was built (I delivered my second to last stove in May for the same reason). Their house is in Chitzujay, Cobán - up over the mountain to the north for 30 minutes of back roads.
The drive was pretty insane. I had Impact Ministries' Toyota van with the stove, Blaise, and 5 people from the family in the back. Switchbacks with washed out cement tracks on the steep parts were freakier than the cliffs.
Blaise was a real trooper. The kids loved him and he played with them really well. They gave him a green short and fat banana and some sugar cane. I got a cola.
I worked with the father to set up the stove. We had to build a 6-inch dirt platform for the stove because the stove pipe wasn't long enough to reach the high ceiling. The family is Q'eqchí and the mom doesn't speak a lick of Spanish so it took a while to explain how to care for and use the stove.
On the drive back to Tactic we could see the landmark church in Chi-Ixim to the south of us. The church towers high above our town.
Later the same day, I took Amber with me to get a photo I needed to send to a donor. From Cuyquel, we could see the same church in Chi-Ixim to the west of us.
It was nice for Amber and I to get away - thanks to Jess for looking after our napping babies. After a terribly bumpy drive that Amber had to weigh the back of the van down just to get up some climbs, we had a 20 minute walk down and up and down a street and some corn fields. The recipient family wasn't home, but I got a picture of their house construction.
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