Photo Credit: Lungelo Ndhlovu/ Thomson Reuters Foundation

Environment Zimbabwe17. March 2020

Indigenous People Go Old School: Homes on Stilts Better Than Brick Houses

Increasingly warm temperatures and heavy floods around Binga, Zimbabwe, led the indigenous Tonga people to look to their past to protect their families: they’re now building ngazi – traditional elevated wooden huts – next to their modern brick homes.

The ngazi were the original elevated homes of the Tonga until modern changes in the 1950s led them to switch to brick alternatives built on the ground. But with climate change causing extreme weather in the nation, the indigenous people are learning from the past in a switch back to homes on stilts.

“(The Tonga) were very innovative and clever in that they used their natural environment to find solutions to flooding,” says Christopher Tshuma, heritage education officer at the BaTonga Museum in Binga, adding that with temperatures reaching 42 degrees Celsius in the region, the two-meter height of the stilt homes also helps people keep cool.

The locals have highlighted that the aftermath of the heavy rains in February – which displaced over 200 families, saw all the brick homes destroyed, while the elevated ones were still standing.

Source:
Thomson Reuters Foundation

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