how to make a brick

long time, no write. my work at the ngo has picked up pace, and i am much busier than before. i am also outside of the major city of patna, and i rely on the hospital generator for power (right). it is off at night and in the early morning.

i am now in daudnagar, a town of 50,000 and the home of DORD headquarters and hospital (left). dord hospital currently provides eye services: glasses and 50-100 cataract surgeries six days/week. comparable numbers in the usa for one surgeon on one day: around 8. (fanatic antisepsis at the expense of efficiency. the ophthalmologist tell me the infection rate approaches zero).



my tasks with the ngo have settled on three major projects: organizational charts for the hospital (there are six of them, developed in conjunction with the ngo director and following lengthy discussions). the hospital has developed to meet immediate needs, and raja wants to systematize the structure as they embark on further development. the charts will be presented by the director and discussed with staff this week). another project is working with senior staff and teachers on conversational english (they can all read and understand, but benefit from grammatical help in constructing english sentences),. the third project is a collaborative proposal for expanding into full maternity services (normal deliveries and cesarean section deliveries). for me, a fun project, drawing on my clinical background in childbirth and my administrative experience over thirty years. i have also visited seven indian hospitals to understand the customs and procedures here.

today's blog, however, is about construction in india. the organizing concepts: very few machines, extensive human labor (which also provides sustenance income for families) and great ingenuity and skill in using simple tools and age old processes. i share this story with awe and respect. i am sure it is also infused with my irreducible romanticism, but indians tell me most indian people are happy. hard worked, but happy.

we begin with brick making. the area around daudnagar is blanketed with tall smoke stacks (far left), each in the center of a mound of sun dried mud bricks (right) which are covered with fine ash and sand carried in rounded metal pans (below) prior to baking. the load is heavy. the sun dried bricks are laid in an interlacing fashion. at one end of this 120x50 foot square and 7 foot high mound are holes for crushed charcoal which burns and sends heat through the catacombs to bake the bricks. after 24 hours or so (probably shorter when the ambient temperatures reach 100-110 degrees fahrenheit in may through august), a parade of people unearth the bricks and stack them for loading onto trucks or wagons to be pulled by simple tractors. the bricks are carried from the kiln on one's head (photos above). the kilns run 24 hours/day.





to make the bricks, dirt in situ is mixed with water by hand (far left), allowed to sit, then put into molds (middle left) and laid out for sun drying (above). they are then stacked and covered for baking as described above .

in the next few days, i will post the story of the brick construction that is taking place in the front yard of the hospital. it will be the generator building.

naomi has requested shorter posts, so i will end here. i feel most grateful that i am being allowed to spend almost four weeks in a rural town, an experience for which i was hoping and which does not present often. i have borrowed a two wheel bicycle and scoot around, something i would never attempt in the larger city of patna. it is enough to walk there without getting hit by someone or something. people here are incredibly friendly, which will be yet another post.

take care.