House Building Part 4: Thatching

Now for the next installment in the House Building series that I began back in May (for previous posts see here, here and here). Today's post is about my favourite step in the process, thatching.

Thatching is always done by women. Sometimes a roof is thatched by one or two women over several days.

Sometimes there is a "thatching bee" where a whole group of women, usually friends and neighbours of homeowner, are invited to work together for a day or more. For smaller huts, it usually only takes a day for a group to finish the thatching. Usually no monetary payment is given to the thatching bee women, but they are given tea and lunch.




The basic materials used for thatching are:


1) Bundles of grass

2) Rope that is hand-braided from special grasses that are used for this purpose. The rope is soaked in water. I think this is so that it can easily be pulled and tied tightly, and then will shrink and tighten even more as it dries.

3) Thin sticks/branches

The thatching process involves lining up grass bundles, placing a line of sticks on top of them to hold them down, and then tying the sticks to the roof framework with rope. The photo below shows a side view of the first row of thatch on a hut.

This is an inside view of the lower level of the framework of a house. You can see a few of the rope ties securing the rows of sticks that hold down the bundles of thatch.

Here's a video that shows how the bundles are arranged and tied on. You'll see the "technique" of two different women, who were both working at the "bee" in the photo near the top of this post.

To be continued...