“The rains are much shorter now than they used to be, and this is affecting our crops. We need to change our thinking if we are to stop this from getting worse.”

Jenifer Miti is a member of a group of 25 women in the village of Chilobwe, close to Chief Nzamane’s palace, who are participating in a stove building programme which aims to make cooking more environmentally friendly.

Two weeks ago, representatives from a German development organisation called GTZ came to the village to teach the women how to build mbwala, energy efficient clay stoves. These stoves, which are made using clay from ant hills in the area, use less wood and charcoal than the open fires which are usually used for cooking in Chilobwe, thus helping to reduce deforestation, and stabilise the vegetation and climate in the area.

“In the 1970s, you could predict almost to the day when the rains would arrive. They would come on or around the 20^th October every year,” says Ms Miti. “But now, sometimes the rains don’t come until the end of November, or even the start of December. Our yields are much smaller because of this, and the people don’t have enough food to eat.”

“Nowadays, we don’t have enough trees. Tall trees attract the rain. As our community grows, we cut down more trees to turn them into fields to grow food, but also, a huge number of the trees that we cut down are used for firewood.”

The women in Chilobwe are aiming to build one stove each, and one for all sick and elderly members of the community who are not able to make their own. Each stove takes one woman a full day to make, and 31 have been finished so far.

After the raw material is collected from the ant hills, stones and grit are removed from the clay, and water is slowly added as the clay is rolled out. It is then pressed into a metal bucket to give the stove its shape. The bucket is lined with ash to prevent the clay from sticking to it.

The moulded clay is then turned out of the bucket, and smoothed off using a wet stone. A round hole is cut out of the side near the base for the wood or charcoal to be inserted, and three raised clay ledges are attached to the rim to hold a pot.

The stove is then left to dry. When the GTZ trainers come back next week, the women will be shown how to fire the stoves to harden the clay, before the stoves can be used for cooking. The men in the village have built a brick kiln which will be used for the firing.

Chilobwe is the first village in the area to build these stoves. After the supervisors have visited to inspect their work, the group will be given a certificate to prove that they have been fully trained in making mbwala, and they will then be able to train women from other villages in the area.

“These new stoves will also save us time, as we will only have to collect firewood every third day instead of every day,” says Ms Miti. “Because they are made from clay, once they get hot they stay hot, and we can cook for longer on them using less fuel.” The stoves that the women are currently using have more openings, sucking air in from all sides which results in high fuel consumption.

“The rains are much shorter now than they used to be, and this is affecting our crops”.

The Head Man of the village has a larger clay stove in his kitchen building with two openings which allows two pots to be used at one time. Once the group have finished making the smaller stoves, they will begin making these larger ones for their own homes.

Clay stoves like the ones being made in Chilobwe are being introduced all over Africa. The stove designs vary from country to country, but the principle is the same – clay retains heat, meaning that the stoves use less fuel and generate less smoke, thus reducing deforestation and creating a cleaner and healthier cooking environment in the home.