Maria Antonieta Chávez Saloj

Six years ago, Maria Antonieta Chávez Saloj found herself in an odd meeting. She and her neighbors gathered to listen to the story of one family who had decided to sign up for a program sponsored by Habitat for Humanity Guatemala.

“We chatted with them, asking about how they had benefitted from this programming, and how they wanted to form a group, a committee I believe, to see how other people could benefit, too,” Maria explains. Although she didn’t take action at that moment, the family would stay in her head for the next five years.

Maria never had a stove before. For her entire life, she had cooked in a hole in the ground, which was always filled with heaps of firewood. As a single mom struggling to support her daughter, Maria found odd jobs with needlework. “My old way of cooking used a lot of wood. I would go through extremes to find enough to feed the fire. For hours, every single day, I looked and looked for wood.”

Still, the stove didn’t leave her mind. Maria was especially fascinated by stories claiming that the stove improved health. She had no idea what that felt like. “I had always had a cough, a cold,” she said. “My eyes were always bothered by the smoke. I burned myself. Once in awhile, I went to the doctor, but I was always told to take expensive medicines for the cough.”

Eventually, Maria decided to take action. “My family help me cut blocks for the new stove. It took a month to cut and dry the blocks. Then, this group came to construct it one day.” For the past year that she has used the stove, Maria notes that it has made an enormous difference.

“This new stove gives me much more, just like the promoter said. Whenever people now ask me, I now say, yes! It is true!  I can cook everything at the same time. And I take about two hours to look for enough wood, which lasts three days.” Because she can better prioritize her time, Maria also looks for wood to sell to her neighbors, which can help pay for her daughter’s university tuition. And a bit more food for the both of them.

To the group that made the stove possible, Maria is incredibly grateful. “Thank you for your support. I am so grateful to everything that you did.”

Magdalena Catarina Chox Choror

“I look for wood in the mountains.” Magdalena Catarina Chox Choror points outside in the distance, where purple crags rear up under a hazy gray sky. “It takes about half of a day, but because it’s just my aunt and me living here, it lasts us almost an entire month.”

Magdalena is accustomed to difficult work and also to completing it diligently. To support herself and her eighty-year-old aunt, she has two jobs as a laundry and cleaning woman in the bustling communities below her village of Paraje Tzantinamit. While she enjoys being busy, Magdalena is grateful that she no longer has to invest a staggering amount of precious hours looking for firewood.

For most of her life, Magdelana struggled daily with preparing meals for the household. “I had been cooking in the ground for twenty-five years, since I was a little girl. I had a hotplate balanced over a hole in the ground, which made it a lot more dangerous.” She explains the smoke highly affected her, and she faced multiple health problems, especially with debilitating headaches. However, she had no way to fix or alleviate them. “I couldn’t go to the doctor because it was too expensive for me. Sometimes, I took medicine, but not a lot.”

Since building a smokeless stove with Habitat for Humanity Guatemala volunteers and her extended family, Magdalena’s life has become a bit easier. She notes that her favorite things about the smokeless stove is that she can save more money. “I can buy little things. And it’s easier to make tortillas because it doesn’t take so much time.”

Thanks to the smokeless stove, Magdalena can continue to work hard and thrive. She is grateful to the support that those have given her along the way. “It is a great help that you have given me,” she says. “Thank you to the group that made this possible.”

Simón Yax

Like many others living in his village of Paraje Tzantinamit, Simón Yax (40) works as a day laborer throughout the year. The mountainous community where he, his wife Juliana (39), and their three children live, heavily depends on agriculture as their livelihood. Working long hours in the field is not uncommon, and despite their greatest efforts, several families, including Simón’s, suffer.

“We’re always waiting in this community for new projects, because the poverty here is bad. We have open arms, we are waiting,” he tells us.

Simón embraces support wherever he can find it. Thanks to Habitat Guatemala’s Healthy Home Kit program, Simón used his talents to work with a volunteer group to build a new and improved latrine for his household. It would replace the old latrine, which Simón explains, was old and falling apart.

“Our other latrine didn’t have a tube,” he recollects. “It was built terribly, and was old. Also, it was made of only a few ribs of wood. It was so bad that we weren’t using it.” Rather, when his family needed to use the bathroom, they opted for the fields behind the house.

Simón says that it took him two days to dig a hole for the new latrine. Then, the volunteer group arrived to help him build the walls and roof. “They were so eager to get it done,” he laughs at the memory. “We shared lunch and snacks with them. And we took photos. May god bless them, where they may be now, I wish them success and blessing in their lives with God.”

Simón reflects positively on the experience and hopes that others will be able to benefit.  “I like that Habitat Guatemala has projects, especially Healthy Home Kits,” he remarks. “With the stove, the latrine, and the filter, families can be better.”

Reina Isabel Vásquez Yac

Reina Isabel keeps track of the list on her hands. She taps each fingertip in order to count each person that is currently living in her house. A pause, then a smile. “Nine!” She confirms. “There are nine of us.”

She refers to the nine people that currently occupy the same house. Although having many people in the same space can be a daunting experience, Reina Isabel says that likes a big family. Her parents, husband, brother, and children have all lived on her mother’s land for over thirty years. She says that not much has changed, except for one major development.

“We came to know Habitat Guatemala because a few people on the committee came to see us, asking if we would be interested in a Healthy Home Kit,” Reina Isabel says.  During that moment, during the committee’s visit, she thought about how nine people were all using a dilapidated structure as a latrine, which was uncomfortable and unhygienic.

“The old latrine was built five years ago, from adobe,” she describes. “There were problems with the toilet bowl part. There was no privacy. It was difficult to clean.” Reina Isabel shrugs. “Because of all the problems, we decided to go ahead and get a new one that same day.”

Thanks to the work of her father and four brothers, their family completed the new pit for the latrine in about a week. Later, a group of volunteers came to help build the new structure. “They were kind and hardworking,” she says. “And the new latrine is much better. It is a lot easier to maintain and clean. It has affected all of us in many ways for the better.”

Her message to the volunteers? “Thank you for the help that you gave us. The latrine works well, and we are grateful for it.”

“Living here is calmer. I love everything about having a house.” This is the first insight provided by Ana Maria Saquic Toc (28). For as long as she could remember, she woke up in her mother’s overcrowded house to the sounds of seven other people traipsing between rooms. She dreamed of a better living situation, especially to cope with a painful time in her life.

“At that point, I already had a family, my little girl,” Ana Maria says, in reference to her seven-year-old daughter, Kristi. “I wanted to be alone, to feel the freedom of being alone. Because I’m no longer in communication with my husband, I needed something to call my own, a new start.”

To find a solution, Ana Maria went back to the source. Her mother’s house was a Habitat Guatemala house, built a few decades back, and she decided to seek advice from the organization. However, Ana Maria was concerned about her financial situation. As a single mom working in the municipality of Santa Lucia Utatlán, she felt that her salary would be insufficient to cover the costs of paying back a loan on a house.

But after making a trip to the affiliate office in Panajachel, her fears melted away. “Habitat Guatemala put financing in my favor. When I felt that there was no other possibility, here there was a solution.”

Soon after being approved for her home, construction began. Then, a group of volunteers arrived to support Ana Maria. “I am so grateful to the work that the group did,” she says. “They helped advance the house so much, and the mason and assistants were able to finish in a faster time because of them.” She smiles. “Thank you for the opportunity that you have given us.”

Ana Maria and her daughter moved into their new home at the end of October 2016 and have lived there peacefully for six months. She notes that there have been enormous benefits. “Our lives have changed. My work schedule is more flexible, I can sleep more, Kristi is happier and better. She can play wherever she wants.”

Mother and daughter continue to engage in personal growth and relish the comfort of having their own space. They painted their house a vibrant blue, “a calming color” as Ana Maria puts it. Thinking ahead, Ana Maria is contemplating additional renovations she would like to make. “I want to put down a ceramic tile floor, maybe put on an addition,” she laughs. “But that’s for another time.”

Matea Chiroy Chuj

A green basket of fresh tortillas sits on the ledge of Matea Chiroy Chuj de Mendoza’s smokeless stove. Steam rises from the hot stack, fresh from the grill. Matea adds to the pile, working each mass of corn flour against the palms of her hands before flipping them down on the metal surface. Her husband, Tomás, sits and looks on.

“I like how there is more space to cook everything here; beans, tortillas, tamales, all at the same time,” Matea (47) comments. “A complete meal can be prepared like this.”

As she continues to make tortillas, Matea speaks in Kaqchikel, a Maya dialect, about how she is still getting used to a good stovetop. “For my whole life, I cooked in the ground,” she reflects. “There was another grill given to us by an NGO, which we used for about two years. But it didn’t work very well.”

Matea also found herself frustrated, particularly with how terribly her health fared. “The smoke affected me. Mostly my lungs. I didn’t go to the doctor because I could not afford the medicine there. It was so much money, 150 Quetzales ($20) and it wasn’t worth it.” She also laments about wasting wood. “My husband and I used to go out every day to find wood. It took so much time in a place where there aren’t a lot of resources.”

One day, however, her life changed for the better. “There was a leader in our community that put us in contact with Habitat Guatemala,” she remembers. “The organization has worked here before. We had seen groups of volunteers in the community, building stoves and such, and we thought that was a service that we needed.”

Using a machine, Matea and her husband spent two days cutting blocks for the stove. It only took them two days to finish. Then, a group of volunteers arrived. Matea’s eyes light up when we mention them. “I remember how the team came in two buses. They did a great job, and Don Efraim, our mason, was also so hardworking.” She smiles. “It was a beautiful experience.  We are very grateful and happy. This is a better way to help our family.”

For the past nine months, Matea has enjoyed the use of her stove. She is excited that the days of cooking in the ground are far behind her and that she, her husband, and their children may enjoy the path to a safer, healthier life.

Susana Xoquic Guit

A Habitat Guatemala smokeless stove sits quietly in the middle of Susana Xoquic Guit’s kitchen. On top of its surface, pots simmer with the midday meal. The fire below gives off a warm glow, and an occasional crackling snaps through the air. The scene is peaceful. However, Susana reveals that this way of cooking is relatively new for her.

“Our old stove was pieces of blocks that were stacked on the ground. It was tiny, fitting into a corner,” she says in Kaqchikel, a local Maya dialect. “It wasn’t reliable. The smoke always leaked out of it, and cooking took so much time.”

Susana suffered for her efforts to prepare meals for her family of seven. “When there was smoke filling the room, I was always with a cough or a cold,” she says. “I bought some medicines from the health clinic, but it was so far and out of my way.” As for her children, Susana worried for their safety. “My children burned themselves all the time on the logs that would fall out of the stove.”

One day, Susana saw a stove building project taking place in her community of Caserio Vasconcelos. Curious, she decided to investigate. “We asked if these were projects for people like us.” It turns out that there was a local committee visiting that day, encouraging community members to apply for a Habitat Guatemala Healthy Home Kit. The kit would include a smokeless stove for Susana and her family.

A group of volunteers similar to the ones that Susana had seen that day soon showed up at her house, eager to build. It took about six hours. “That is how the stove came to be,” Susana remarks.

The best change, Susana explains, is that the stove no longer hurts her children, but helps them. “My favorite thing about the new stove is that it’s taller, so they can’t hurt themselves.” The stove has brought several economic benefits, too. “We also save for not having to look for wood. That way, we can buy food, clothes, and school supplies for our children.”

We ask Susana to describe the group of volunteers that helped her family build her stove. She speaks with gratitude, her voice trembling. “You worked so hard. Thank you for all of your hard work. Thank you for taking the time to play with my children. We are very grateful for your support. We don’t have money or the education to build a stove on our own. I don’t have any more words to say other than thank you.”