I must first admit that I’ve never given much thought to bricks. We don’t use them for building in California (because, you know, earthquakes), and elsewhere in the country they’re just part of the built environment — in the background. But in Uganda, with a young and growing population and urgent demands for new housing, bricks and brick-making are ubiquitous.

Our guide, Hassan, mentioned in passing that one of his side hustles was making and selling bricks, and this piqued our curiosity — especially Craig’s, since he has a background in construction. So over the course of our travels we had many conversations with Hassan about bricks: the different kinds of bricks, how they’re made, from what and by whom, how you build a house from them. As soon as he pointed them out to us, we started noticing brick piles and brickworks everywhere.

Toward the end of our trip, we came across a small artisanal brickworks near Lake Bunyonyi, and Hassan obligingly took time to explain to us what we were seeing and how it all worked. Craig had the happy notion of capturing Hassan’s explanations on video, which is how we discovered that he has a natural talent for on-camera presentation! Craig directed, a job for which it turns out he has a natural talent, and I was the camerawoman.

Later in the trip, we stopped at a much larger brickworks, and Hassan elaborated on some of the points that had been missed in the first recording session. Unfortunately, due to user error (ahem!), some of the footage from this second session was not properly recorded, but enough was captured to provide additional depth to the story. (Note the deliberate use of the passive voice here!)

Anyway, here’s the result. Hope you find it as fascinating as we did!

• See Hassan carve a pineapple: The best pineapples in the world