LUSAKA, JOHANNESBURG
Engineers are mimicking the technology of termites to build cheap, durable, environmentally friendly and desperately needed road infrastructure in Zambia and, in the process, providing jobs at grassroots level. The almost indestructible nature of termite mounds and the realisation that this technology could be adapted to build roads even more hard wearing than those made from asphalt came at the cost of a broken limb. The idea came from my best, best friend, a South African named Henry Halle, who, in his garden, tried to kick those [termite] hills away. On his third try he broke his leg, said Kim Anderson, a Danish national working in the Zambian capital, Lusaka. After that he came to me and said, This is something! We need to replicate this technology for construction.