As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Tanzania from 2002- 2004, I taught secondary school chemistry and mathematics. After a difficult first year in a remote region experiencing prolonged drought, I was transferred to the lush town of Njombe, in the southern highlands of Tanzania.

Njombe is the district capital of the region with a paved road running though town, (occasional) electricity, running water, a post office, two small banks, and a host of one room stalls selling everything from fabric to fertilizers to grilled meat.

Njombe Secondary School, where I taught, is a few kilometers from the center of town, surrounded by rolling hills and small family farms on three sides. The Wabena people, the majority tribe of the area, are joyful and welcoming. I won’t pretend I wasn’t lonely, but I fell in love with the verdant hills and warm hospitality of my fellow teachers.

Two years after returning to the United States I found myself in the middle of a PhD program, feeling wholly disconnected from any human context to my thesis work. Events in my personal life and a deep longing to return to Africa led me to find a way back to Tanzania. To continue with my graduate studies I veered – uhhum – a bit from my thesis work in chemistry, into the field of public health: I organized a field study to look at people’s exposure to air pollutants formed during household cooking over biomass stoves.

My original intention was to follow up Peace Corps “improved cook stove” projects that occurred during my tenure as a volunteer. These stoves, built using local resources, are designed to reduce smoke exposure and conserve natural resources. Unfortunately, for a variety of reasons, I could not find efficient stoves still in use in the surrounding villages.

The one example I found of “fuel efficient” cook stoves being regularly used was in my former secondary school. A boarding school with nearly 900 students, Njombe Secondary uses industrial sized fuel-efficient wood stoves. The kitchen has six large and two small stoves. The larger stoves were professionally built, and while nearly 8 years old, are still holding up well despite daily use. The smaller stoves were cheap imitations, with thin metal walls that quickly corroded under the heat of cooking fires. By the time I arrived with my testing equipment, the chimneys and front walls of these smaller stoves were entirely burnt away - spewing smoke into the kitchen and completely negating any health benefits of the improved stoves.

Since witnessing this, my goal has been to raise money to replace these broken stoves. I am still interested in improved personal cook stove initiatives aimed at reducing indoor air pollution for the poorest of Tanzanian families. But I see Njombe Secondary school as an important community leader, and adopter of improved stove technology that may influence future development projects and the design of school kitchens in the Njombe district and beyond.