Cooking in Tanzania

There are two ways that Jon and I cook in Tanzania. Obviously, we don’t have a stove top or an oven. Other volunteers have made the investment to purchase a propane tank and a propane stove top. After using theirs, I am jealous we didn’t invest in one immediately. It’s expensive, but you can get your money’s worth if you do it right from the start.
Jon and I use a charcoal stove and a kerosene stove. The charcoal stove is much more cost-efficient. A bag of charcoal weighing more than me only costs us less then $5.00 USD. Whereas, the kerosene is more expensive than gas prices in America. I prefer using the kerosene because it’s quicker and easier to control the heat source. The downside is of course, the cost. Basically, Jon and I have a household policy that if it is going to take more than twenty minutes, we use charcoal. Anything, usually like hot water for coffee or tea or a quick meal will be cooked on the kerosene. We often use both at the same time, so we can quicken cooking by having two “burners” going  at once. It’s not that the charcoal is at all bad to cook with, it’s just it takes so long to get going to cook on it. A meal could be finished on the kerosene stove before the charcoal is even ready to be cooked on.

Above is our charcoal stove. We put a “griller” over the top so we could grill the night I took this picture.

How to light a kerosene jiko