No more burning red eyes

The air in a kitchen is thick with smoke when the wood is burning in a traditional cooking stove. This causes many deceases among women. A new improved cooking stove leads the smoke away.

Juna Bohara and Renu Bista Photo by Malene Lærke

A constant headache, burning red eyes and a hot and dry feeling inside. That was how Juna Bohara felt every day for years after she had been cooking in her kitchen. The old cooking stove filled the kitchen with smoke from the burning wood. This had serious consequences on her health.

“It became more and more difficult for me to see. After I had cooked in the kitchen in the morning and in the evening I felt terribly. I felt like someone had put teargas in my kitchen. I had to drink a lot of water with glucose to cool myself,” recalls Juna Bohara while she shakes her body in disgust.

It is five months since the improved cooking stove has been build in her kitchen. She lives in the village Rametar just outside Baglung bazaar and is just one of many women who have suffered from the smoke in the kitchen.  

A major problem for women

Many women in Nepal get health problems caused by smoke in the kitchen because the old fashioned cooking stove does not lead the smoke out. Traditionally a cooking stove is two small platforms made of mud where the pot is placed upon and in between the fire is burning. The most common health problem is poor eyesight but also cancer, lung problems and head aches are common side effects from the smoke.

“I see the problems every time I go to the villages to tell about the improved cooking stove. Especially problems with the eyes are common. When I come back in the village to teach them to maintain the cooking stove the women tell me they feel much better,” says promoter from DCRDC, Renu Bista. She has through a training at former MS partner DCRDC learned to build the improved cooking stove and goes to the villages to promote it. Until now she has built 54 improved cooking stoves during the past 6 months.

The improved cooking stove Photo by Malene Lærke

“I go to the villages and talk about the advantages about the cooking stove. Some are quickly convinced while some are more reluctant. I convince them by telling them that this will help them to get rid of the smoke in the kitchen and in their eyes. When they see an improved cooking stove working they also want one and good rumours travels fast,” says Renu Bista.

It takes around two hours to build the stove and the material required is wrought iron to set the shape of the stove, 60 bricks, sand and soil and material to make the chimney. The advantages of the stove is not only no smoke in the kitchen but also that it takes less time to cook food on the stove and it uses less wood.

Women are queuing

Five months ago Renu Bista came to Rametar and knocked on Juna Boharas door.

“I had been waiting for that to happen. Some other women in this village have an improved cooking stove already but they had been built by another organisation that unfortunately stopped working here. My husband and I had a long time ago decided that we would spend money on a new stove,” says Juna Bohara. An improved cooking stove costs 200 rupee.

Today Juna Bohara kitchen is clean and the air is fresh. There is a faint smell of smoke in the kitchen coming from the woodwork after years in the smoke. The plates that are standing in a row on the shelves are clean and shiny. Juna Bohara has no health problems now her kitchen is free from smoke.

“Now I don’t have to buy glucose to put in the water. Today I feel good,” she laughs.