Solar-Powered Tea Kettle

I climbed a mountain the other weekend with my English friend Andy. The scenery was pretty, the weather was ok, and climbing was fun, but the best part of the trip (besides finally speaking English and freely complaining about teaching methods at the university) was visiting an old man who lives on the mountain and keeps up a Buddhist temple.



Andy and I stopped to say hi to this guy, and we ended up sitting and talking to him for a while. The main subject of our conversation was this cool contraption that the man has set up. Since he has no electricity, he has this reflector panel that concentrates the sun’s rays on the bottom of a tea kettle, and this is how he boils water. (And I thought frying ants with a magnifying glass was BA…)

It just so happened that as we arrived at his home, he was putting the kettle on. As we finished our conversation, the water was just starting to boil. Perfect timing.

This man was really baffled as to why I kept asking about how he boils water, and Andy also doesn’t think it’s cool as I do... What do you think?