Is Zambia Nice?
Apart from HIV-infected people dying too young, and some other mayor problems, I find that Zambia is rather enjoyable. This is for example the back garden of one of the 'poor' schools.
The kids already have Christmas holiday. And now they are fishing in the lake. This is pretty much like a summer holiday as I remember it, when we went with the Vouwwagen to Sweden. The only difference is that we didn't catch the fish for having a better dinner, and that this lake is not a natural lake in Scandinavia, but a dam, built for collecting water for irrigation. That's also why pre-dam dead trees are sticking out of the water.
Construction
I've been looking around a lot to see the best way to build, considering money and environment. I came across this interesting mud hut, which is a bit bigger than the standard vernacular one. This one goes 9 meters into the air, and serves as a barn for a commercial farmer, completely built using fired clay bricks, and mud plaster. I'm going to start some experiments with new/old building methods in January. I've made contact with the organisation La Voute Nubienne , they are re-introducing an old building technique in Africa. Using a bricked vault, we can reduce transport costs, and material costs of metal sheets and timber (= big cost reduction). Also the indoor climate will improve drastically compared to the currently used method.
