Brick by brick: Homa Bay women rewrite the rules

By  George Odiwuor

Correspondent

Nation Media Group

What you need to know:

• Women in Central Karachuonyo are making bricks to earn incomes, support families and challenge traditional gender roles.
• What began as a way to survive between farming seasons has become a thriving women-led brick-making enterprise in Lwala.

From a distance, Lwala Nyakongo Village in Central Karachuonyo looks like a busy construction site.

In one home after another, barefoot men stamp on a mixture of soil and water, their feet sinking into the mud with every step. Others push wheelbarrows full of fresh red earth, while another group scoops the saturated mud into rectangular wooden moulds, shaping what will become bricks.

The wet bricks are laid out in the scorching sun to dry, before being stacked into a towering clay kiln where fire hardens them into strong building blocks. It is back-breaking, dusty work. And it is done entirely by men.

A few metres away, under a small shade, women sit and watch. At first glance, it looks like the usual story – men doing the hard labour while women watch from the side-lines. A perfect picture of traditional gender roles.

But in Lwala Nyakongo, things are different. Here, it is women, not men, who drive the trade. They may not mix the mud, but they make every single decision. They control the entire rural industry, from procurement of raw materials to production, to sales, marketing and finance.

The men provide the muscle. The women provide the brains and the business. To cement their power and avoid resistance, the women organised themselves into groups. Each group has its own leader, and one of them is Phoebe Omolo, the chairperson of Onyonore Women's Group.

On any given day, you will find her not at the brick-making site, but at her office, a simple shed along Kanyadhiang-Pala Road near the Lwala Nyakongo Seventh-day Adventist Church.

That shed is the headquarters of a booming enterprise. Together with her members, Phoebe waits for customers. When a buyer arrives, the women take over. Men are kept at bay. “We are the ones who negotiate the price, count the bricks and handle the money,” Phoebe says with a firm smile.

The women take charge of everything, including loading bricks onto lorries, accompanying the buyer to the construction site and offloading the materials there. They do it to support their families and take care of other personal needs. Phoebe says this was not the situation in the village ten years ago when she got married there.

Then, men did all the work from mixing soil to sales. But a few women tried engaging in the business, and when they got into full swing, they realised they could do it.

"Women saw a big gap in their lives. Most of those who engaged in the business had no source of income and were struggling to pay fees for their children," she says.

The main challenge in the village is a lack of income-generating activities. As in other villages, farming would be the best option to put food on the table. However, erratic weather patterns make it difficult. Residents mostly plant during the March–April rains and wait another year for the next season. Whoever does not manage the harvest well risks going hungry.

It is for this reason that the pioneers started using the free time they had after planting to engage in brick-making. As the trade proved profitable, more women followed suit, and today most households have at least one woman engaged in it.

"Since starting this business, several women have become breadwinners in their families. They are the ones responsible for paying fees and taking care of other family needs," Phoebe says.

She explains that whoever wants to make bricks must have all the materials needed – soil, firewood and labour. The soil is mixed with water to a certain consistency, then scooped by hand into moulds. At least three bricks are made from one mould.

"The reason why we are in a group is to ensure we can sustain the market. Sometimes people need more bricks than a single person can offer. We therefore combine forces and ensure we deliver," she says.

Previous jobs

Maurine Ouma got into the business when she was struggling to pay fees for her children. She has been in it for a decade.

She recalls that women in the village initially sought casual jobs from men who dominated the trade. Their work was mostly limited to fetching water and loading trucks. But over time, some women began doing the same work as the men, taking on roles that had traditionally been reserved for them.

"There are some brave women who led the way when they started to make bricks. Others copied them and realised that they could also do the work," Maurine says.

But there was a major challenge. Most of the work drained energy, and they got tired after making a few moulds.

"Before going to work, women must do other household chores. Unlike men, who can just wake up and go straight to work, women must engage in certain activities at home before they go to work. This made some women lose energy after making a few bricks," she says.

So, men were brought on board and assigned the energy-consuming tasks. She explains that the number of bricks someone makes depends on how much she earned from previous sales. In the village, soil costing Sh1,000 can make 1,000 bricks. Other costs go to firewood and labour.

Self-reliance

"After sales, we take some money for family upkeep and keep the rest for the business. It takes up to one week to make 1,000 bricks, with each sold at Sh9," Maurine says.

The enterprise has particularly helped widows who previously depended on their husbands. One such widow is Coleta Akoth Otieno. She lost her husband in 2017. She says she used to depend on him for most of her needs. When she became a widow, she decided to look for work to sustain her family.

"I try to minimise hiring workers because it costs a lot to pay wages. I make the bricks myself after I get help from those who assist me in mixing the soil with water," she says.

Another woman, Christine Auma, says they normally cut down trees to light the kiln. It costs Sh7,000 to hire a power saw to cut a tree into pieces. Whoever wants to make 5,000 bricks needs up to Sh20,000 for labour and materials.

"You have to keep a close eye on the numbers. If you're not careful with your calculations, you can easily make a loss instead of a profit," Christine says.

According to her, homes where women make bricks have fewer cases of conflict. "I support my husband, who in turn cherishes me," she says.

All the women have dreams, from personal growth to communal development. They want to have their own savings and credit cooperative society. Christine wishes to start other businesses and expand her income-generating streams.

Caroline George aims to build a permanent house. She also wants the group to have its own lorry. "We currently hire a lorry from Kendu Bay, and the drivers there charge a lot of money, making us get less profit. Having our own lorry will enable us to grow bigger," she says.

For Winnie Akoth, the dream is to own a tuk-tuk (a small, motorised, three-wheeled vehicle) to ferry soil and water. "Farming is now unsustainable, with most people planting once a year. This makes brick-making a better option," Winnie says.

Among the men engaged in making bricks is Enock Onyango. He used to work at a hotel in Kisumu before retiring to the village. He joined the business when he realised women control it.

"They are the ones who know the customers. Whoever tries to take over from them fails," he says.

Their main challenge is water. There is a canal under the Kimira Oluch Smallholder Farmer Improvement Project that channels water from River Awach to farms for irrigation.

But sometimes the canal dries up when the water level upstream goes down. During such times, the group struggles and has to source water from elsewhere. Phoebe says it costs a lot to buy water from vendors who use donkeys.

Another problem comes when it rains. Before bricks are put in the kiln, they are laid in the hot sun to dry. On cloudy days, this becomes difficult. "If it rains when the wet bricks are still in the open, the process will have to start again. Rain damages their shape when drops hit them," Phoebe says.

A few women have large polythene sheets to cover wet bricks, but strong wind often blows them off. At the same time, intense heat can make bricks crack before they are put in the kiln. This makes the bricks brittle and can lead to the construction of houses with weak walls.

"We have had instances where customers say they cannot use bricks made by women on claims that they are weak. It is a stereotype we are trying to fight, and we want to prove such people wrong," Phoebe says.

In a region where brick-making has long been seen as a man's job, the women of Lwala Nyakongo have quietly rewritten the rules – proving that you don't have to lay a brick to build an empire.

Despite earning a living from making bricks, some of the women still live in mud houses. But they remain hopeful that the trade will one day enable them to build the homes they dream of.