2007.01.25: January 25, 2007: Headlines: COS - Paraguay: Solar Energy: Engineering: Beaverton Valley Times: Tara Moomey builds a solar oven for her village of San Javier in Paraguay
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2007.01.25: January 25, 2007: Headlines: COS - Paraguay: Solar Energy: Engineering: Beaverton Valley Times: Tara Moomey builds a solar oven for her village of San Javier in Paraguay
Tara Moomey builds a solar oven for her village of San Javier in Paraguay
Tara has high hopes for the solar oven project she plans to share with her contacts in San Javier. “A solar oven would be so much less expensive than a wood burning oven that relies on firewood people have to walk or bike miles to get,” Tara said. “Firewood has become a valuable resource – it’s so expensive. “Nine months out of the year they would have plenty of sun for the ovens. Using a solar oven would also really help with women’s health issues.” While some families in the village use brick ovens to cook their meals, many continue to cook over an open fire pit in soot-damaged kitchens. Tara said that many of the women and young family members that sit in the kitchen as meals are prepared suffer from respiratory problems. Cooking over a fire pit also leads to other health issues as they are forced to either boil or fry all the meals they prepare. Solar ovens would give them a healthy alternative, Tara said.
Tara Moomey builds a solar oven for her village of San Javier in Paraguay
Peace Corps volunteer cooks up a sunny plan
Paraguayan village could benefit from Tara Moomey’s challenge
By Christina Lent
The Beaverton Valley Times Jan 25, 2007
Caption: Beaverton’s Tara Moomey hopes to show women in Paraguay the benefits of using solar ovens. She and her father built this prototype in just a few hours. Photo: Jaime Valdez / Times Newspapers
Tara Moomey is the first one to admit that building things is a challenge.
But she will have to construct a solar oven from scratch and use her creation to slow-cook a meal if she wants to convince women in the Paraguayan village of San Javier that solar cooking is a viable option.
“I’m going to have to prove that it works,” Tara said.
To prepare for the mission ahead of her, the 24-year-old Peace Corps volunteer turned her two-week trip home into a working vacation and enlisted the aid of her parents.
While her mother Sherrie searched the Web for solar cooking recipes, Tara and her father Randy tackled the challenge of building a prototype.
Armed with three sets of Internet instructions, cardboard boxes, a roll of tin foil, glue, tape, a plastic cooking bag and black paint, father and daughter spent a couple hours building their prototype solar oven on the kitchen floor of their Beaverton home.
“It was a puzzle putting this thing together,” Tara admitted as she showed off the family homework assignment. “It took us a while to find two boxes that fit together right.
“Now we have to test it.”
With last week’s blustery winter weather conditions, a test run of the oven had to be postponed.
The Moomey family will have to select a recipe, prepare a dish and send a review of the solar oven’s performance to Tara, who returned Monday to Paraguay for the second year of her commitment to the Peace Corps.
If the oven works as it should to harness the sun’s energy to cook the food, then Tara will use the notes and photos she took while creating the prototype with her father to build a second oven on her own with materials she gathers in Paraguay.
“Now that we’ve been able to build one, I’m more confident than when I left Paraguay,” Tara said. “I feel really good about it now.”
Rewarding experience
Tara has high hopes for the solar oven project she plans to share with her contacts in San Javier.
“A solar oven would be so much less expensive than a wood burning oven that relies on firewood people have to walk or bike miles to get,” Tara said. “Firewood has become a valuable resource – it’s so expensive.
“Nine months out of the year they would have plenty of sun for the ovens. Using a solar oven would also really help with women’s health issues.”
While some families in the village use brick ovens to cook their meals, many continue to cook over an open fire pit in soot-damaged kitchens.
Tara said that many of the women and young family members that sit in the kitchen as meals are prepared suffer from respiratory problems.
Cooking over a fire pit also leads to other health issues as they are forced to either boil or fry all the meals they prepare.
Solar ovens would give them a healthy alternative, Tara said.
Once she can demonstrate that the cooking technique works, she plans to ask a local carpenter to help her build a more “aesthetically pleasing” solar oven out of wood that uses a sheet of glass instead of a plastic cooking bag.
“I think they will be more receptive to the idea that way,” Tara added.
Introducing the idea of baking by using the sun for energy is the second step in a nutritional education program Tara has worked on in the village.
In her first year, she worked with women in the village to teach them how to cook with soy.
“Their diet consists of a lot of carbohydrates and red meat,” Tara said. “No one likes the idea of replacing meat with soy, so I’ve showed them how to take out some of the white flour or cornmeal from their recipes, and replace some of the carbs with soy.”
She’s also shown them where to buy soy beans in the market, soak them in water, liquefy them in a blender, strain out the milk and use any of the residue of the soy remaining to lower carbohydrates in their diet.
“I’ve always been interested in health and enjoy most anything that has to do with nutrition,” said Tara, who earned a bachelor’s degree in human physiology and Spanish from the University of Oregon in 2005.
She feels fortunate to be able to combine her passion for tackling health concerns with sustainable world development in her Peace Corps assignment.
“It feels good to know that I’m doing something useful and contributing in some way,” Tara said. “The relationships I have with the people in the community mean so much to me.
“I’ve met a lot of wonderful people who have shared their culture with me. It’s going to be bitter-sweet when I have to leave Paraguay because this has been such a rewarding experience for me.”
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Headlines: January, 2007; Peace Corps Paraguay; Directory of Paraguay RPCVs; Messages and Announcements for Paraguay RPCVs; Solar Energy; Engineering
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Story Source: Beaverton Valley Times
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Paraguay; Solar Energy; Engineering
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