Middle East & Africa | Fire escape

Donors make it harder for Africans to avoid deadly wood smoke

Making the cleanest the enemy of the clean

Keeping the home fire burning
|KASAI

YVONNE KAYAYA has never seen a gas cooker. In a poorly ventilated room in her home in Kasai, Congo, she stews potato leaves over a charcoal stove no bigger than a small stool—as generations before her have done. “I sometimes cook with firewood. If I have money, I always buy charcoal,” she says, unaware that both fuels are clogging up her lungs.

This article appeared in the Middle East & Africa section of the print edition under the headline “Fire escape”

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