By Andrew Mibei

Between the airstrip and Kapsimotwa in Bomet County, there is serious business going on. Several young men in torn trousers cut above the knees and old shirts move their muddied legs swiftly.

These young men, who are carrying jembes and 20-litre plastic tins, are the brick makers of Kapng’etuny. Their muddied hands and legs have helped many people put up beautiful houses in Bomet and beyond.

Whoever coined the expression ‘necessity is the mother of invention’ had these people in mind. Because their land is flat and usually waterlogged, they couldn’t practice agriculture.

And because of lack of alternative employment and poverty, the young people of the area didn’t have another business option and settled on brickmaking.

It is a backbreaking job but the youths The Standard spoke to say they are determined to make a living from producing bricks.

For upkeep

One of them, Wesley, a Form Four leaver, says since he had no adequate training, he opted to make bricks for upkeep.

“It is hard to get a job in Kenya without further education. When I could not advance, life did not stop and I had to find something to do. With very little land at home, the only option was to try brickmaking. Of course, I tried joining the police and army but I had nobody to support me there,” explains Wesley as he admires his  ready-for-sale bricks.

The energy-sapping job requires a lot of time and expertise before a bricklayer can use them to make walls.

Pandasaa, whose name is a corruption of Manchester United goalkeeper Van der Saar’s name, is Wesley’s workmate. He says their work, like any other job, requires a lot of patience.

“It takes time to produce good quality bricks. It takes us at least two months to produce good bricks — from start to end,” says Pandasaa.

Fine pulp

To produce quality bricks, they  select the area they will excavate soil. Then they remove grass before digging out the soil, which they then ‘beat’ to fine pulp.

This is then left to settle for about four days before mixing it thoroughly with water.

“Every soil particle must come in contact with water otherwise the final product will disintegrate,” says Wesley.

There is a lot of energy at play when they mix the product. A jembe helps them churn the soil as they mix it using their strong legs and hands. This is the hardest part of the job.

The fine mixture is then left to ‘ferment’ for a week or two, preferably covered with polythene.

Shaping of the bricks is by specially made wooden frames where two bricks are made at a time.

The soft bricks are then left to harden under grass cover before being ‘staked’ and left to dry for at least a month.

Then they are baked. This is the final step before the bricks are ready for construction.

‘Experts’, like Wesley and Pandasaa, arrange the now dry bricks in a kiln in such a way that spaces are left on the ground surface for wood fuel.

The pile can go as high and wide as 3m. This size holds up to 10,000 bricks but there are bigger ones that carry 12,000 or more.

However, the larger ones are hard to manage and can easily spoil the results, explains Wesley.

“The fewer the better. This is both economical and efficient,” he says.

Lacks strength

A normal kiln requires firewood of up to Sh4,000. They use wattle trees but due to diminishing plantations in the region, other species are also used with the exception of cypress, which, they say, “lacks strength”.

The baking takes up to a week then the bricks are ready for sale.

They say bricks bring good returns but brokers and middlemen exploit the brick makers, as they want to buy the bricks for a song.

The middlemen make ridiculously low offers especially when they know the brick makers are desperate.

Sometimes, they are offered as low as Sh5 per brick while the reasonable cost is Sh10, considering the amount of work and time put in the process.

But it is not all gloom. Besides giving them their daily bread, the work has enabled some to purchase land and build houses where they live with their families.

Others have bought boda bodas from the brickmaking proceeds and one young man has even bought a lorry from the same.
Despite being a tough job, at least it is not in vain.