Lucia Santos Tobar (46) heard the rumors from her neighbors. According to a few women living in her village, there would be a community meeting about ways to help families like hers. Curious, Lucia attended the meeting, which was hosted by Habitat for Humanity Guatemala. She became immediately interested in Healthy Home Kits and left that day after signing up to pay installments for a smokeless stove, water filter, and sanitary latrine.

For years, Lucia had been suffering from back pain, mainly from consistently bending over to cook. She never had access to a stove. “We made a fire in the ground with some rocks and iron to support the pots,” Lucia says. This cooking method negatively impacted her family. “We had the flu multiple times and burned our eyes from the smoke. We couldn’t see. I got eye drops from the doctor, but nothing I did helped.”

The circumstances changed when a group of Habitat Guatemala volunteers came to help build her stove. “It took about two weeks to build the entire thing, from cutting blocks to building it. Seven volunteers came to work. My husband helped.” She looks down. “He’s passed away. But I think of him whenever I see the stove. It reminds me of him.”

Lucia has had a difficult few months. After her husband’s passing five months ago, she has been charged with running a household as both homemaker and breadwinner. To earn money, she and her five children, Lucas (25), German (22), Eldy (19), Santos (17), and Fidel (14), work long days together in the fields to plant, harvest, and prepare crops for market.

Despite her hardships, Lucia is hopeful. She lists how her smokeless stove has made life easier. “Now compares to nothing before.  It’s easier to cook. I can put more pots on the stove; I only have to put wood in once.” She smiles, laughter in her eyes. “Also, I can drink my coffee in peace.”

Lucia is also pleased with the other features of her Healthy Home Kit. Her previous latrine was old and in such pitiful shape that her family never used it, rather, electing to go out in the fields. “It was a hole and a few reeds. Nothing more,” she says. However, the new latrine is significantly better. “It’s cleaner, more hygienic, and more private. It took only two days to build, between the work with my husband and the group. It’s well maintained.”

Her water filter has also helped in several ways. Lucia enjoys that she no longer has to depend on boiling tap water. If she or her children are thirsty, they can drink from the filter without the fear of contacting waterborne infections.

When asked if she has anything else to remark upon the experience working with Habitat Guatemala and its volunteers, Lucia falls quiet for a moment. She gathers the folds of her apron in her hands. Finally, she speaks. “For me, my house is no good. The roof leaks, and the wind enters at night.” She holds her gaze steady. “But this, when I see people lending someone like me a hand, wanting to be part of this life and build things that will make everything a bit easier for my children, I feel better and not so alone anymore.”

María Tzoy Tiu (32) and her family live at the bottom of a hill in a small community outside Santa Lucía Utatlán in a cluster of houses dotting the countryside. The sprawl of her relatives is endless; María herself cannot count the number of aunts, uncles, in-laws, and parents that make up her family.

“We are many people,” she says. We stand outside her kitchen, and her two-and-a-half-year-old son, Gustavo, clings to her skirt, shyly peeping up from beneath the wide rim of his little straw hat. “So you know, cooking is a challenge.”

María came to know Habitat for Humanity Guatemala in a unique way. “For a long while, we have cooked on a Habitat Guatemala smokeless stove that my in-laws built,” she says. “We loved the design and how well it worked, so we applied for our own.” She also recognized that having two effective cooking stoves rather than one would guarantee that every mouth was fed.

María is also grateful that working with Habitat Guatemala smokeless stoves has proven beneficial in other ways. “We’re fortunate not to have had long-term health problems,” she tells us. “No smoke, no coughing, no colds.”

For the past year, María says that she has been pleased to have a good, functioning stove and that she has enjoyed using it. She recollects that her family and a group of Habitat Guatemala volunteers built the stove. Together, they cut blocks, mix mortar, and arrange it. “They came to build the stove, and they worked very hard. They were friendly, too.” She smiles. “Thanks to them, we can cook more efficiently.”

Isabel de León de Tay’s happiness is contagious. She has lived in Santa Lucía Utatlán, Sololá, for over thirty years with her husband, Eduardo (59), and their three children, Josue, Cecia, and Elia. Entering the community, it is easy to spot Isabel, who waves furiously to someone she may (or may not) recognize.

For this reason, when a group of Habitat for Humanity volunteers came to help her family build their first stove, Isabel says that she was over the moon. “Five people came to construct the stove. It took about fifteen days to cut the blocks. Then about half a day to put them together.” She grins at the memory. “They chatted a lot and played with my children. They were so happy.”

For over thirty-two years, Isabel (50) prepared meals in the ground. Speaking K’iche, an indigenous language to the area, she recounts that her old way of cooking was a nightmare. “I used to cook in the earth before, with no grill atop.” She draws block shapes in the air as she speaks for emphasis. “It was a few bricks stacked on top of one another, then lined with a piece of iron, and that way, I cooked my tortillas.”

She feared for her health and her children. “The stove bothered my eyes tremendously. It cost me so much to cook—my health, my work. Everything took so much more time. I couldn’t leave my children for a single moment, because they would always grab at the pieces.” She giggles, cutting the story short. “Now, they still try to touch the stove, which I let them do, because I’m no longer afraid that they will burn themselves!”

The new stove has made an enormous difference. Isabel holds her arms out as if she were about to embrace a large person. “When I cooked in the ground, I needed this much wood every single day. I had to buy it.” She notes that although the new stove still needs wood as fuel, it uses so little that she no longer has to purchase it. Instead, she only has to look for wood once a week. With the extra money she saves, Isabel can buy maize. “So much more maize!” she beams.

We ask if she has something that she would like to say on the experience. She claps her hands together in appreciation. “I don’t have many words to say in Spanish, but in K’iche, I thank you for your hard work. I’m so happy with the stove. When are you all going to come back to visit me?”