I've
been wanting to write this post about home remodeling and building in
the Upper West for some time but I've been waiting for the story to
finish.
Most
of the homes, latrines, walls, and outbuilding in the area are made
of mud bricks. Which seems crazy because the place has torrential
driving rains during part of the year. How do they stand?
The
building season is during the dry season; around December to around May. Men are responsible for building so it is mainly the work of
men and boys. Although women and girls do bring some of the water to
make the mud.
Roger's
primary building project was a make-over so I'm risking copyright
infringement but it does fit my post. He wanted to make bedrooms for the
two older children still at home and a storage room. He needed to
break down a wall that was in the way of the addition to start. Breaking down walls made from
mud bricks gives you the raw material for new mud walls, just add
water. Actually is it a little more complicated that that.
First
Roger and the older son broke down the wall. This was done mainly
with a pick ax. And then the clumps of clay and sand and pebbles and
dirt had to be broken down in fine material with the back end of a hoe handle. (Think of a short wooden club.)
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| Part of the wall has already be knocked down. |
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| Roger working on brings a wall down. All very manual labor intensive. |
Straw and water is added to dry rubble. Clay from termite mounds or the ground along with pebbles, dirt, and sand is collected and added as needed. This uses a lot of water so most everyone helps to carry water.
They mix the mud and clay together with their feet. A form is used to make the bricks which are about 15 inches long 8 inches wide and 5 inches
thick.
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| Forms for the bricks and bricks drying in the background. |
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| The form makes two bricks at a time and here are two rows of bricks ready to dry. |
You
need a lot of bricks and a significant amount of time is spent making and drying bricks. The bricks are sun dried for a couple of weeks and need to be turned for even drying. These bricks, blocks, are heavy. After they have dried enough they can be stacked so the open area is available to make and dry more bricks.
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| Bricks |
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| More bricks (turning bricks over to dry evenly in the sun) |
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| And more bricks stacked close to the foundation dug in the foreground |
And
then a huge unusal rain came on February 20th this year when many building
projects were well underway. By this time some people
had the buildings nearly ready for the roof which is unfortunate
because without the roof the mud walls don't stand a lot of
rain. Some walls were partially broken and many projects in the area
were set back.
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| Different building just maybe a week before they would have started the roof, damaged by the rain. |
Roger
was sort of lucky in that he did not have much built. However, he had a
lot of bricks made and the rain was even worse on those. So he other
other people were not so lucky. But Roger and others seemed to take
it in stride. We will just keep working. Perhaps God sent the rain
to saved us from some disease and so why should be complain. And
what good would it do anyway?
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| These use to be bricks. Not much left after the rain washed through |
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| So were these - back to the mud pit to be remade. |
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| Maybe a few of these might be saved, but most will need to be remade. |
The
sun dried bricks are laid into walls with a thick layer of mud. The
walls typically have butresses. Even with this supporting structure some walls eventually being to crack and lean away from the building under the weight.
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| OK, let's start building |
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| Building almost done. Note the buttresses along the wall |
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| Windows and doors are framed with wood. The boy is using a hoe to bring mud to the mason. |
After
the walls are complete and have had a chance to dry more the roof is framed. A metal roof is typically
used in this area for the larger buildings. Smaller storage bins may
have a grass roof (grass roofs are rare in my immediate area). The traditional roof in my area is a thick mud roof. People sleep on the roofs during the hot season and also dry some of their grain away from some of the animals.
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| Working on framing the roof. Wood is painted with black dirty oil to give it some protection against insects. |
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| Adding metal roof. Almost safe from the rains. Here a porch is built in front of the bedrooms to provide support for the major wall as well as a place to take off your shoes before entering the room. |
After
the roof is installed the building is rather safe from rain. The
next step would be to apply a plaster inside and out. The plaster
may be a thin concrete or a traditional plaster. The traditional
plaster is black, possibly due to the use of a significant amount of
cattle dung added to the mixture.
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| The nearly completed addition. Plastering and working on the floor will be done in time. |
Now
that the building is done Roger is working like mad getting his farm
ready before the rains come. He also needs to finish
building the family latrine and connect the walls to the new addition
and close back up the walls around the family compound that were broken in December last year.
Update on projects
My rabbit project has been approved although the money is not yet in my bank. However, I have enough to get started building my cages. I still would like to visit one or two other rabbit breeders to see where the best places in the area are for new breeding stock. We will be using the smaller village rabbits rather than larger breeds such as New Zealand Whites. I could not find a successful breeder of larger rabbits in my area, possibly because they don't stand the heat as well or because no one has brought them into the area.
I've started planting in my zai pits. There was an announcement at church last week that livestock should be tied up starting June first until the end of the growing season. Some people have started planting in the flood plain below my place but I think I'm the first to plant in the laterite soul around the homes. One of the reported benefits of the zai pits (trenches in my case) is the ability to plant sooner in the season. However, unless there is sufficient grass in the area the people will not tie up their goats and so some my feast on early sweet corn, been, and okra plants.
School is underway and I have a stack of math papers on my table to grade before Monday. This term is rather short so we will soon be preparing to write the questions for the end of term and end of year questions.
Health update
I remain healthy. I'm just about done with the medicine for my ears and I'll talk with the doctors to see what comes next. I was in a dust storm the other day and my eyes have been itchy and such so I'm back to using some eye drops. I'll let the doctors know about that as well.
Love and best wishes to all.
Love always,
John
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