Anzuma Khatun; [Author]

Cooking and kitchenware

Pottery

Pottery (POT)

Cooking

Sula is the clay stove seen in both rural and urban Rohingya kitchens. Rohingya families traditionally cook with firewood, which they purchase from woodcutters or forage themselves. Gas and electric stoves can now be found in urban Rohingya homes in Rakhine, but gas shortages and electric outages mean that most families still maintain a sula in their kitchens. In addition, many Rohingya people say that they prefer the taste of sula-cooked food. In the camps of Cox’s Bazar, households are shifting to aid agency-provided gas stoves and LPG cylinders due to the unavailability of firewood and the risk posed by open flames in such densely populated spaces where shelters are constructed from flammable materials such as tarpaulin sheets and split bamboo. Sula can be purchased or easily made at home, often by women, with mud and water. They range in size from two to four burners. Disco sula, meaning designed or modified stove, refers to a four-burner sula.