In Namibia, as all along Africa, food is cooked at the three stones fire, fed by firewood collected by women and child around the villages. The wood is more scarce day by day, the savannah is more deforested and many people suffer lungs or eyes diseases, due to the permanent exposition to the open fires smoke.
In spite of this, Namibia is one of the countries of the world with more hours of sun per year, a sun that different technologies can use with environmental, health and social benefits..

A new technology has appear, invented by entrepreneur John Grandinetti and Hawaiian association Developing World Solar (DWS). The invention is a solar cooker that heat vegetable oil, used as heat transmitter to the pan where the cooking is done. The outcome, a powerful solar cooker that we are testing at the North of Namibia, in a joint project of DWS, Sol Solidari, and the local contra-part Welwitschia Development Trust (WDT).

WDT gives support to the poorest and most isolated communities of a vast subdesertic region, and together with traditional authorities prepared a list of the first families beneficiaries of a Blazing Tube (that is the name of this new solar cooker). The task of Sol Solidari has been to coordinate and to contribute with our experience to the assemblage, distribution and training, besides to contribute to pay the expenses of the implementation of the project on the field.

At the end of January the container with the 125 solar cookers arrived to Khorixas. It was the first time such a big truck was seen in the village and the expectation was high. The next day an assembled cooker was shown in a meeting with representatives from the districts and the project was explained, ending with regional traditional dances. During the following weeks, the Blazing Tubes were transported and assembled at the houses of the beneficiaries, some of them located at tens of kilometres from Khorixas through pothole dirty roads.

Wherever the assembling teams arrived, they bring surprise to the neighbours, as the cooker is big and strange: it looks as emerged from a science fiction film. And the operation is also extraordinary: under the strong Namibian sun the cooker reach easily 150-200ºC, obtaining a better performance than a gas stove. We usually heat water, as the quickest and easiest way to show the operation of the cooker, how to point it towards the sun, how to cook and the main maintenance guidelines. But when visiting the same families after some hours or days, we see pots with rice or meat boiling under the admiration and gratitude look of the beneficiaries, often old people with difficulties to gather firewood.

A follow-up visit is scheduled for June, to verify how the solar cookers work and what are the problems detected by the users.

Thanks to the effort of John and his family (DWS), to Edith, Dawid, Mrs. Tsaes and other members of WDT, to Erastus, Marie, Harold, Seth and Jeremy, the young technicians who distribute and assemble the cookers with unlimited enthusiasm, to the traditional chiefs and to the conservancies for the help on the logistics, and in general to the people of Khorixas, who know the way to achieve a sustainable development, and that need from us help and collaboration.
In short, another step to make profit of a source of richness that will never cold-shoulder us: the sun.
In Namibia, Sol Solidari ....

• Introduce a new technology to cook with the sun.
• Reduce the deforestation and the incidence of lung and eyes diseases.
• Improve the quality of life of people particularly vulnerable.