Walter and I had a wonderful experience this morning visiting Saul’s house and seeing them making tortillas on our only working stove – waiting for the clay tile and pumice to go inside the other 23 that are “finished bodies”. The pumice and tile needs to be put in that 23 plus the comal and wood trays need to be made. To make the comal efficiently the plasma cutter is needed. Erik is going to CFE on Monday to try to hurry up the installation of the meter. He has installed the Stove Fuse Box buying the materials with his own funds. With luck all 23 of those stoves will be finished next week.
Walter and I also visited Saul’s mother-in-law’s house where she was also making tortillas on a traditional “fogon” – open fire surrounded by brick. Very different situation – black smoke everywhere – Walter’s pictures will tell that story… coming your way later today or tomorrow. The nineteen old sister in law of Saul has had to have eye surgery that they say was a result of being around the smoke and the mother-in-law has eye problems and other throat and lung problems from all the years of tortilla making. This is her business; she makes some 200 tortillas every morning and then travels in to the SMA market to sell them. It would be a wonderful documentary film project recording the traditional methods, exposing the many health issues and ecological issues and moving forward into replacing the traditional fogon with a eco-cino stove. Can we find a film maker here that may want to do this? I wonder – the film festival began last night and their must be many film makers here in SMA this week who could do a short documentary.
