A Better Life with Steem | Grow Your Own | Dara Lipa (දර ලිප)

Today I am going to write about something old but valuable that symbolizes the rural society of the past and can be seen in the present society as well.

We often pay less attention to the things around us. With our busy works , we take help from those things without caring. That's what most of us are used to🤗.

^{Dara Lipa}
Today my topic is about a hearth. It is a wood stove. In my country , we call it "Dara Lipa" (දර ලිප). In shortly, with the development of the society , people use gas cooker instead of dara lipa. Gas cooker save the time. And also easy. When using dara lipa, it's hard to find firewoods in present society. So dara lipa depart from the society little by little.

^{How to place the three stones}
In my home, our dara lipa has made from three stones (as shown in the above picture) as usual. We used six bricks for that. We renew it twice a year. How?
• First we make a mixture using clay, cow dung and rice porridge (සහල් කැඳ).
• Secondly we coat the mixture well around the oven and on three stones.

^{How the mixture comes out after laying}
You can see in those pictures , we use firewood, coconut husks and coconut shells to ignite the Dara lipa. And dried coconut leaves also use for that. The stove is ignite by matches.

^{Dum Bataya}
After lighting the stove for a while the fire in the stove goes down .. At such a time we blow smoke into the stove through a pipe. We call it "Dum bataya"(දුම් බටය). Usually it is a iron pipe.

^{Drying firewood}
We easily find firewood, coconut husks and coconut shells , dried coconut leaves from our surrounding. Firstly we dry them well. Sometimes we do that for dried firewoods also. Because the black ants are hiding inside.

^{Dum Massa}
Then we keep some of them near the dara lipa (as shown in pictures) and others put on the shelve which we have made over the dara lipa. We call to that shelves "Dum Massa"(දුම් මැස්ස) in sinhala language.

^{The brush made from indi leaves}
After cooking the ashes are left. We use a brush to collect those ashes and clean around the dara lipa. That brush made from the leaves of a tree. It was a gift from my mom's friend and she said that leaves are "Indi leaves"(ඉඳි කොළ).

In my home, most of the time we boil water from dara lipa. For the day when everyone is at home (for the holidays) we also cook rice from dara lipa...

Dara lipa is a natural valuable gift from our ancestors. It gives us a great service..❤

So guys, open your eyes. There are so many valuable things around us like dara lipa.🤗