Burnt earth still a useful tool

Oct 03, 2009 News

…West Berbice man keeps tradition alive

Roberts and some members of his team, harvesting a completed heap in the background at Profitt and preparing another one for firing.

Alongside the Georgetown-Rosignol Highway, just east of the Abary River Bridge, into the first turn to Profitt Village, there is a sight reminiscent of the 1940s and the 1950s —a “burnt earth heap.”
On any given day, one may also see men around it, or one like it, tending to it, sorting and stacking logs, building it up with clumps of clay, shaping it into a large mound.
Long ago when major roadways were made of burnt clay, these heaps were like dots on the landscape of many villages.
In these days of bitumen surface and asphalt and crusher run roadways, the burnt earth heap surprisingly lives on.
It’s almost crystal like bricks are still highly competitive in the local market for road construction materials.
As in the old days too, the bricks continue to be a source of livelihood for many in the East Mahaicony and neighbouring West Berbice Villages.
Wallace Roberts of Calcutta Mahaicony and a few other villagers are the owners of the heap at Profitt Village. They are keeping the tradition alive.
Roberts knows of some people in the Highdam Mahaicony area who are also in the burnt earth business but says that as far as he knows, there are not that many people in the business, or people as knowledgeable about it.
Roberts, also known as “Lio”, and “The burnt earth man” has no hesitation in describing himself as the burnt earth specialist.
He is in his early 50s and has been making burnt clay bricks for the past thirty years.
He learnt the tricks of the trade from his father, Cyril Roberts, deceased.
On a sunny day at the heap at Profitt last week, Roberts said that the enduring nature of the trade is due to the fact that the burnt clay bricks are considered to be excellent material for establishing foundations for roadways.
He explained, “In the days of the red road the burnt clay bricks were on the surface and that drove the demand for burnt earth brick. Now that we get the quarry stone and bitumen, there is still need for the bricks but for under the surface works—as foundation. These bricks just too good to be ignored.”
The highly prized bricks are also being bought by some rice millers who use them in a process to make parboiled rice.
Roberts stressed that the production of burnt earth bricks is not as simple as it seems.
“It may look simple but there’s a special way of setting this heap up and of setting it alight. If you don’t know how to do it, you would end up with black and brittle bricks, not these nice hard red bricks that contractors want.You end up wasting a lot of time and labour.”
But the special way of doing it is a secret and he wouldn’t tell. “This is just like the KFC thing. No can tell,” he said as he maneuvered a small tractor pulling a trailer loaded with six-foot long courida logs.
What is unclassified is that the establishment of a mound and the production of the burnt clay bricks is a process that takes about a month.
The team uses courida logs as the foundation for the heap. They stack these logs in a certain way.
Then they pack large quantities of mud on top of them to make the grave like mound, characteristic of the heap. Then they fire the heap.
The mound burns for three to five days. The heat is tremendous.
After this time, all that remains of the mud and the logs, is the hard lumpy red brick, ready for harvesting and transportation to buyers such as road building contractors and owners of modern parboiled rice mills.
Roberts said that the market for the burnt clay bricks is strong and growing.
“Once the weather is dry, as soon as we finish one heap, we move on to another. It would be a good thing if we can get two or three heaps going all at the same time. But we working on that,” he said of himself and his team.
Meanwhile, it is El Nino weather and many are complaining about the prolonged dry spell.
Roberts, however, is not complaining: its ideal weather for burnt earth heaps.
Last week he and his team were harvesting bricks from one heap while simultaneously setting up another.
Additionally, over the next three weeks or so, travelers along the Georgetown Rosignol highway may see two or three more large mounds at Profitt. Not to worry, these are not mass graves.
Wallace Roberts and his team will be setting up a few more heaps as they hustle to make full use of the current dry weather before the rains arrive