
Hearth Surgery (2009) - mitchbob
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/12/21/hearth-surgery
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tejtm
I was worried at the beginning they were just doing a gloss but the article is
pretty accurate. I have been around these folks for decades.

A few memories, first a typical geeky well meaning do gooder buddy build
paraboloid soar collectors and took them down to a village in central America
where the locals were extremely pleased with them when he returned a year
later he did not see them right away and the local were evasive ... he
eventually spotted them doing duty as the benches in the outhouse. The
materials he brought were perfect for that.

The next is after they went to Africa, they came to see the people of Central
America they had been helping for all those years as middle class in
comparison, not really poor because they had never seen really poor.

And the final thought is the author through no fault of their own wrote the
piece too early to include Ken Goyer who worked incessantly making the stoves
with less and less till they had a six brick stove one could make for pennies.

He has passed on now, but a childhood friend of his picked up his 'Aid Africa'
foundation.

[0] [http://www.aidafrica.net/](http://www.aidafrica.net/)

