aweramba medeja.

The Integrated Watershed Management team, in partnership with experts from GIZ—a German aid organization well-known in Ethiopia for its energy efficiency and biomass conservation work—just completed fuel-saving stove construction training in two model watersheds. The hands-on training taught 30 farmers (half of whom are women) how to built an aweramba mud stove using locally available (and free!) materials: mud, ash, stones and wood.

According to the GIZ energy expert, the aweramba stove is indigenous to the eponymous Aweramba community in northern Ethiopia, near the city of Bahir Dar. This small community (population 400) is distinctive in several ways. It is known for its gender equity (the expert told me, “The women plow and the men cook and take care of their children”) and its lack of religion. “Their religion is work,” said the expert. The community was started by a charismatic, eccentric leader named Zumera, who some have called a traditional cultural leader and others have called a philosopher. The community is also know for its textiles. I am definitely planning to visit the community before I leave Ethiopia.

The adoption of energy-efficient cooking stoves like the aweramba stove are so important for Ethiopia because they are low-hanging fruit: they save between 30 and 50 percent of the biomass needed to fuel the traditional, three-stone cooking method that is widespread throughout the country, meaning they cut down (no pun intended) on deforestation in communities using firewood. In communities without forest resources, such as the two we were conducting training in, the communities have resorted to using cow dung for fuel. Introducing fuel-efficient cooking methods means less cow dung used for fuel and more going back into the soil, enriching soil health.

Fuel-saving cooking technologies, by significantly lowering a household’s total fuel consumption, save households money if they purchase their fuel, and they also free up women’s and children’s time for other activities, like income generation or school. This same benefit is seen in communities that build a new water-delivery system that lowers the total distance women must travel to collect water.

Another advantage of the aweramba stove model in particular is that it is built with a stovepipe that removes harmful particulate matter from the home, increasing the indoor air quality that is a major cause of upper-respiratory infections in women and children. Importantly, the design of the stove also facilitates internal combustion in the cooking chamber, which generates fewer pollutants than traditional cooking methods—pollutants that contribute to climate change.

This week, I witnessed two communities become energized by the indigenous knowledge the trainers shared with them. I also got to eat raw chickpeas from the pod, wear my new straw hat (a gift from a researcher at the Holeta Bee Research Center) and sit on the edge of a cliff overlooking the Blue Nile River Valley at sunset. Thank you, Ethiopia.