Brick by Brick

The bricks that are now being stacked to form the walls of our house in Zambia are made right at Namwianga Mission. On one of our summer visits we spent a few hours watching the brick-making process. The clay for the bricks is dug out of centuries-old termite mounds. It is mixed with water the old-fashioned way as the barefoot workers stomp around in mud puddles! The brick mud is then poured into wooden molds. When the bricks come out of the molds they are laid in rows to dry in the sun. The gray sun-dried bricks are then stacked to form a box-shaped oven. The outside of the brick oven is coated with mud and a fire is built on the inside. During the firing process,the bricks turn red.