The next stage in building the new Zion Day Care is walls. The walls will be brick, made of the very earth of Kirangare.
When suitable earth is found, it’s dug out, water is added, then it is mixed with feet. Then the bricks are formed and left to dry. Here are men forming bricks in wooden molds. These bricks will be for their own projects, not the Zion DayCare. But the process is the same.
Video here.
The bricks will dry for about a week. These bricks on the Day Care construction site are just about ready for the next step.
The dried earth bricks are then built into a furnace. Inside the furnace, a fire is lit. After a few days of firing, the brown dried bricks turn red. Now they’re ready. The furnace is disassembled and the bricks are used.
In the background of the next photo, you can see two furnaces at the Day Care construction site.
Mortar can be made from the same earth. Or for a higher cost, from cement, as you can see above with the Day Care.
Many buildings’ walls are finished with a concrete veneer. Here is my bedroom in Pastor Fue’s mother’s house. Beneath the concrete veneer are the same red earth bricks. The veneer protects and strengthens the wall.
Sometimes the concrete is painted, as are the walls of the Kirangare Church building.
But again, concrete is more expensive. So most homes’ and buildings’ walls are not finished.
Foundations are made of stone, dug from the ground. The stones are broken with hand tools, laid, and cement is poured.
This work is all done by hand and human bodies, no machines or hydraulics.
In time, it’s hoped that the Vocational Training Center in Idaru will train men in construction.