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| Articles A Ceramic Safari in East Africa
Top: Atop the Hoffman brick kiln at Khorobhagarat, Sudan. Egyptian technicians at left and center talk to their Sudanese counterparts. The kiln's heat helps the heavy fuel oil in the containers to become less viscous. Sudan's number one export is cotton. It also grows sunflowers for producing oil. The stalks of both cotton and sunflowers usually go to waste. Bagasse is a byproduct of sugar cane, mixed with molasses. South of Khartoum, a carbonized bagasse is being manufactured. Another important attribute of the vertical tunnel kiln is that it is well suited to small scale production, requiring only three or four workers at any time to operate. Along with its obvious environmental advantages, this kiln complies with the need to start industry on the smallest scale. For the BRRI's kiln, a second educational phase would aim to improve the skills of traditional brick makers, training and encouraging them to build their own vertical tunnel kilns. The people of developing countries are industrious and resourceful, using constructively what many from the richer countries would regard as waste: tyres turned into sandals, discarded coffee cans turned into lanterns, a scrap of paper turned into a bag. Next page > From Ethiopia to Uganda and Kenya > 5 |
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| © Ceramics Today |
I
enrolled at The New York State College of Ceramics at Alfred University.
Among the more important projects I undertook there was to build a scove
kiln with the help of a small group of people who formed Volunteers in
Technical Assistance (VITA). This scove kiln is built of the same bricks
that it is firing. (Scoving is the mud on the outside of the kiln.) These
simple kilns are built all over Africa with the biggest investment being
time and labour. First, clay is dug and formed into bricks. These are
dried and stacked en masse, a finger's width apart. A slow wood fire is
started underneath and in due course (days later) the kiln is dismantled,
the bricks ready to use. But our brick and kiln at Alfred differed from
those in Africa in one important respect: We had mixed creek sand by foot
into our red clay to make it refractory. We had taken a first journey
into an uncharted region of appropriate technology with little prior information
as to methodology. Our premise for the scove kiln project was that we
were making simple refractory brick and that villagers almost anywhere
in the developing world could do the same. Without much financial outlay,
villagers could then build ware kilns with the bricks for the production
of a variety of ceramic building materials, other refractories, table
and sanitary ware. In a second phase, a foundry could make carpentry or
farm tools, curtailing costly procurement of imported implements. For
water and sanitation, they could make ceramic water filters, pipes and
tiles for drainage or simple sanitary wares. For agriculture, kilns can
be built to burn lime. Glazed food storage containers would help preserve
food until it reaches the market. With all these various sectors in need
of simple, inexpensive solutions on a village level, clear opportunities
in appropriate, small business developments are wide open. So the journey
leads to an inevitable conclusion: The only true guarantee of self-sustainability
is, I believe, to be found in ceramics, the starting point of nearly all
industry. Training and education in ceramics and in high temperature processes
are the prerequisite to start. It is the manufacturers' products, like
refractory bricks or carpenters' tools, that make so much industry possible.
A consumer product, like a vegetable or an article of clothing, plays
no further role in developing industry. 
Left:
Stalls for foot-mixing brick materials will soon be replaced by a mechanised
mixer. This will help make possible the drier mix needed for uniform bricks
and proper stacking, resulting in better bricks and reduced fuel consumption.