OLIVER E. Soe  Thet was  wolfing down a plate of  pasta in the  dining room of Bayview Hotel, Ngapali, where he is General Manager. It was already 4 pm, could this be his lunch? "No, breakfast," he replied. Oliver, dressed nattily in white short-collared Myanmar shirt and a dark red cotton longyi, finished his first meal of the day in a hurry, excited about showing off one of the projects he and his wife Daw Khin Khet Khet Khaing were undertaking. Unfortunately Khet Khet was away in Yangon, so Oliver took over the job of showing, with unabashed pride, the good work done by his wife.  It was a workshop producing solar cookers, a project that is as environmentally friendly as it is friendly to any budding, or talented, chef. It also saves the backbreaking labour of walking miles to gather sticks of firewood. "We are already well on our way in this project, funded 70 per cent by the Ministry of Economy of the German State Government of Saarland, South Western Germany, and 30 per cent by the Foerderverein Myanmar, an organisation of friendship," said Oliver. "The founder and president Dr Runge and his wife have come several times to Myanmar and wanted to help; they feel it is best to develop a country through support in education and with self-help projects. You know the old saying, teach a man how to fish, don’t just give him a fish." The Foerderverein Myanmar has now around 70 members and has been featured several times in the German press and on radio. "We are doing this solar project," continued Oliver, "as we know as well as anyone that saving the environment is very important. Actually, the European Union has provided special support for solar and wind technology to all Southeast Asian countries, which makes sense after the Kyoto environmental agreement. But, sad to say, the EU has excluded Myanmar from this program as part of their boycott. The EU Ministers surprisingly do not seem to understand that environmental protection is not a matter of selective support. This is global damage to be fought against by everyone, by any means possible."The creations at the small workshop in Linthar village at first glance were small, but they were powerful. A group of young men were busy hammering and sawing cabinets, with a double layer of wood at the sides and bottom with coconut fibres in between. The interior of the box was lined with black painted metal sheet - "The very first one we used was a print sheet from Myanmar Times," - and the lid is of two plates of clear glass in a wooden frame. "We use old car tyre inner tubes to seal the heat," explained one man who walked up to greet us. He is U Maung Phyu, (Mr White), the master carpenter. Around the top were four plywood panels at a slant, covered with foil for better reflection. "We don’t use iron nails," U Maung Phyu said. "We use wooden joints only.  "Since September last year, we’ve been training ten young people. They work eight hours a day, six days a week, and get a salary for the whole five months’ training period plus a full set of tools so that they can go on working afterwards.  "One of the trainees is a girl, Ohnmar Soe, probably the only woman carpenter in the country." U Maung Pyu seemed very proud that this male-dominated profession in Myanmar has been successfully invaded by the, er, weaker? sex. The cost, he explained, is between 4000 kyats and K8000 per unit, according to the quality of materials used.  "The initial cost may be high," Oliver said, "but think of the cost of firewood you save, let alone the life of trees." U Maung Phyu said that orders from local teashops are pouring in, where constant boiling water is a must. "Just wait until the housewives hear of this," Oliver added."Our friends in the Shan State, Bagan and Mingun as well as other dry zone areas are also very interested. For the first six weeks a German carpentry expert from the German Senior Expert and Developing Service was helping with the project. It is a kind of NGO, where retired people offer their services to work overseas."  Oliver, a master chef, said that dishes such as stir frying, searing or making curry paste must be done on a quick hot fire so an ordinary stove is needed. But simmering can be done with the ingredients placed in a black pot inside the cabinet, and the whole contraption set out in the sunlight for about two hours. There is space for two pots to be placed side by side.  An NGO in North Korea, using a similar system with a nine metre-squared mirror were cooking enough food for one hundred people, Oliver had recently discovered.Curries and rice are cooked on a daily basis at the workshop using the solar cookers, U Maung Phyu said. "It’s slow cooking, so the food is delicious," U Maung Pyu said. "You should see the rice; fluffy, every grain separate. Rice takes 50 minutes to cook." Another innovation is to dry fish. Linthar Village, where the workshop is, is famous for their dried fish and Ngapi fish paste, which has been dried on the beach for many hundreds of years. He found out that this process could be done in a more efficient and hygienic way with the solar cooker.  A maximum temperature of 155ºC had already been reached but the target was 200ºC at least.  Oliver said that it is also possible to bake cheesecake inside the solar cooker. Now, Myanmar housewives and househusbands do not bake cheesecakes but once they realise that they can find an alternative to electricity cuts, dangerous gas canisters, smoking wood fires and messy charcoal, maybe there will be solar cookers in all villages. Maybe even in cities, where many apartments enjoy full sunlight on balconies for some hours. Such small things, such great amounts of energy. Pics: top left: U Pyu, top right: A female carpenter as good as the boys & bottom left; the Ngapali solar oven builders