But not giving up!

The show must go on.  I know many of you think I am crazy, but I truly believe that if we stand down in fear of violent people we only encourage their behavior.  I cannot become violent myself, but I can resist and gain ground for the peaceful ones.  So enough of melodrama…

I was instructed by our earth bag experts at United Earthbuilders to make some sample bricks from the clay and sand available at Tamesna.  As luck would have it we were not at Tamesna long enough to soak the clay and make the bricks so I hauled 5 bags of sand and clay to Agadez and made bricks here–only to have to haul them back out to Tamesna for a demonstration at our festival.

Here we are making bricks…

Adding clay slurry to sand

Mixing sand, clay and adding water

Testing consistency

Filling the rice bag

Tamping the brick

These suckers are SOLID…like cement.  It is hard to believe, but I think this method is going to be a winner here in Niger.
After making 4 examples using different proportions of sand to clay, we will determine the most solid and use that for all the buildings. Between layers of wet sand bags two strands of barbed wire are strung to provide the re-enforcing. We hope to build small boys and girls dormitories and a teachers residence in the three week program to be held in February.