Warning: Hot Stove!

Depending on your point of view, the objects in this picture may look really interesting or they may look just the opposite.  But whatever you think about the objects themselves, as is so often the case, the story behind them is interesting, no matter what your point of view.

So let's start with the obvious question.  What are they?  

They're cookstoves.  They're fueled by wood or charcoal and they were developed right here in GroveAtopia at the Aprovecho Research Center.  

Now I'm pretty sure you don't know what the word aprovecho means but oddly enough, there are two places called Aprovecho in GroveAtopia, so it's probably worth taking a moment to at least explain what it means.  Both Aprovechos used to be related, but now they're not.  We'll talk about that in another post.  For now suffice it to say in GroveAtopia we know there is "stove Aprovecho" and "sustainable living Aprovecho."  Clearly we are talking here about "stove Aprovecho."

As for what aprovecho means - don't worry, you aren't alone, because that's the first thing most people ask when you start talking about it - aprovecho means "to make the best use of."  

So what you have in the picture is the main product of "stove Aprovecho."  It's called a StoveTec and it's a low-cost, low-emission cookstove designed for use wherever people do most of their cooking over an open fire.

If you think about it for about a nano-second you realize that quite a lot of the rest of the world cooks over an open flame - sometimes outdoors, sometimes indoors.  But you probably didn't think about it much more than that.  

If you did though, and the people at Aprovecho most certainly did - in great detail for many years - you would realize that cooking over an open flame presents problems.  One is that it's basically not healthy for the people and air they breath - especially if they are cooking indoors.  The other is that it can be hard to find fuel.  Especially if you live in the same place for a long time.  Eventually you run out.

So for the past 29 years, the folks at Aprovecho have been working to solve this problem.  Their solutions keep getting better and better, and as they do they keep getting noticed more and more.  If you clicked on the link to their website you know they have won an award from none other than Prince Charles, been featured in the New Yorker and even made an appearance on Martha Stewart.  

And here's a scoop, tomorrow morning, NPR will be here to do a story on them.  

This is all pretty heady stuff for our little town.  Imagine international notoriety for doing good around the world.   We in GroveAtopia don't have to imagine it though because it's already being done.