Questions on village and house form. Please comment.

I had the opportunity to talk with a friend of one of my Toastmasters yesterday. He had lived in Mauritania for two years in the Peace Corps. It was one of the most helpful discussions so far. It made me think I need to be more proactive about talking to all the people I can before I go. On Friday, I found out that one of my coworkers had worked in DR Congo in 2001 for a short time.

My discussion yesterday brought up some interesting questions on village and home form. This village will consist of

1. 30-40 homes
2. a 400-child school
3. a community center
4. a medical clinic
5. 10 acres of agricultural land

Apparently, in Mauritania, folks tend to live in compounds with a central courtyard. Is this true in DR Congo?

The cinder block/metal roof is a sign of prestige. I heard from my conversation yesterday it is a very hot type of structure. Because of the holes in the cinder blocks, the structure doesn’t absorb enough of the heat, thereby heating the inside of the home. The metal roof is also problematic. Traditional roofs in Mauritania were thatch… much better at keeping the inside cool. But not as popular nowadays.

This is a picture of the security house already built on the site.

So this brings up several questions. Can you pack something into the cinder blocks to insulate the house better? If so, what would it be? Mud? Newspapers? Straw? Please comment with your thoughts or resources. Has anyone seen an article on insulating a cinder block home?

And the roof. One thing I saw in my investigations is a heat reflector. Could this be installed below the metal roof to keep the heat from reaching the living spaces? Is there another way to cool the roof structure?

Below is a picture of the roof of the security hut already built on the site.

They will have agricultural land to grow crops to serve their families and who knows, maybe even enough to sell to others. Can you irrigate with greywater? What kind of system can you create in a low-tech environment to collect the greywater from homes and transfer it to the field? What kind of guidelines would you need? I know that human wastewater should not be used to irrigate… what about soapy water? Any problems with that?

And how about that human waste? Will these homes have separate latrines? Will they be lined so that the human waste doesn’t get to the fields or the river or water table?

The project is on a hillside and if we want to use greywater to irrigate, it seems logical that the homes be higher than the fields. But if human waste would get into the water used for the fields it seems like the fields should be higher than the homes.

Any thoughts?