Project Botswana

During 2011, I visited one of my students Terry Hill, who was on one of my rammed earth courses in September 2010, he was about to start the rammed earth walls on his project in Maun, Botswana, Africa.

Here’s a few pictures of what we got up to…

Panoramic view of the site

The development is being managed locally by Tineo Investments (Pty) Ltd

This is what is being built on the site, two 2 bedroom and two 3 bedroom single storey houses with rammed earth walls and a traditional thatched roof

 

Every day the lads get the pots boiling ready for lunch… Pap! (porridge to you and me)

 

They call him Terry… Terry Hill… he attended one of my UK courses and invited me over to help get the rammed earth wall formers built and teach the guys on site to prepare the earth and ram the walls

 

Some of the lads working on the project (Don’t worry, they don’t get locked up in there, that’s where we keep materials etc)

Meet Alfred, he’s in charge of the labour force and for ensuring that everything gets built as per the plans

 

The timber yard where I selected the materials for the formers, finding straight timbers is almost impossible

Maun has a good selection of builders merchants, it’s a shame things are so expensive though

Here we are on site, the small building used to be a house but I made it into my workshop whilst I was there

Not much room inside as it measures about 4 metres square, can’t imagine living in it with a family

 

Every now and again Terry let me out for exercise

 

Alfred, Titus and Terry start setting up the formers I made in the workshop

Corner formers can be tricky to get set up but they’re getting the hang of it

Levelled and tightened up

Straight sections are easier to set up

They have a big petrol mixer available to blend the earth prior to ramming

 

This is Titus, he’s running the project and he’s also a safari guide. (Bit worried about his tee shirt sponsor though)

I built a Saf-Cab to enable the three of us to go on a short safari. Complete with its photovoltaic solar panel is a real head turner, might be because it’s the only wooden one around

Our safari home for the night

This is where I stayed down the road from the site, see ya Terry, I had a blast!