MUD HUT - KENYA

Climate:

Kenya is on the equator and has lots of sunshine all year round. It has a dry season and a wet season and it experiences some extreme weather such as long droughts (when there is no rain at all) or extreme floods. Houses need to protect against the hot sun, but they also need to be waterproof.

Materials:

The Maasai tribe's homes are made by the women in the tribe using materials that they can find easily such as twigs, mud and leaves. All materials used for building are natural and collected from nearby areas. Mud is a natural material that is better at keeping the house cool than concrete for example.

Building the hut:

The huts are usually circular or oval shaped. The first step is to build the frame which is done by fixing gathered timber poles into the ground. After that the poles are interlaced with a lattice of smaller branches which are then plastered with a mixture of water, mud and cow dung. Finishing touches are done with a mix of cow dung and water.

Step 1: building the frame

Step 2: finished house

The next step is the roof, which is also plastered with cow dung and then covered with grass that is collected in the bush. The cow dung is what makes the roof waterproof.

The houses are generally quite small but families can cook, sleep, eat, socialise and store reserves, fuel and even small livestock in there.

It is very dark inside as apart from a few tiny round holes in the walls, there are no windows. There are usually 2 beds – one for the parents and the other for the children. Each woman is responsible for her own hut and she is also in charge of renovations. The building process can take anything from a few days to a few weeks and depends on how many helpers there are and if all the material is available.

All houses together make up a boma that is usually surrounded by a large thorn fence. In addition, a much smaller thorn fence is built in the midst of the huts where the livestock can safely rest at night.