From Bags to Blocks ..Bagamoyo week 4

One kaput wheelbarrow, one hammer, and a handful of nails and we are building a house!! The sandbag foundation is complete. It is to be an earthen house made of stabilized earth blocks or compressed earth blocks ( CEB's) as they are called. We are attempting to use mostly materials found on the site, and that means sand from below the topsoil and clay from the termite mounds. There are no trees, save for a few large mango so who really needs nails anyways? Each time we need skilled labor Elke goes through the same process of explaining the need to reduce the amount of cement in the mix. They can hardly believe it. We have reduced it by 1/3 of the typical amount needed to make cement blocks. Yesterday we spent time testing the various blocks made with the new block press donated by Earthrising.

Here are the samples showing the ratios. sand :clay: cement.








Beyond the main mission of building with a limited amount of imported items, we find ourselves stuck with super crummy tools. There is a limit to the usefulness of items brought to the property where we are staying, where we are creating a mini eco-village. The tenant farmers don’t contribute much to the waste stream, but those visiting do, us included. We bring building supplies and things from town (mostly beer), as opposed to things you can grow or things gathered from the land, like green bananas. During the last workshop a wheelbarrow was purchased and when we located it, it was patched but functionless. Which seems to be the method, put it aside for another use. This barrow had a pulley- system created since it is impossible to move when it is full of clay or sand, and it is designed in such away that you need to stay lower so as to avoid rutting into the sand, a two-system team. The Pacifica Garden Club from California donated eighty dollars ( thank you) to this project and I used it to purchase a new red wheelbarrow. I went for the top of the line (not much of a choice here) and put it to good use hauling sand to the site. Additional tools are always welcome but the real chore is in fixing the broken shovels. After one week of use look at Bill, the fixer man, working his magic with a dull machete.