Bricks

In June the rains stopped and the brick making season started. Large groups of men and women gathered on clayey soil in villages and the suburbs around town. People brought their friends together to form the red rectangles with wooden molds. Soon they had deep pits on one side of the yard, and a large number of bricks on the other.

"Does the owner pay all those people?" I asked, shocked at the thought of what it would cost to pay 10 laborers to form bricks all afternoon.
"No-- people just help out. Then when it's their turn to build a house they know they will have help of their own."

The bricks stayed in scattered piles for weeks and weeks. Then slowly they were stacked into a kiln structure--a dome-topped rectangle with openings at the bottom to light a fire within. More weeks passed. A few days ago, I passed a group of half a dozen women carrying seven bricks on their heads on their way to the construction site. One at the base for balance, then three pairs stacked perpendicularly.

As Carson says, houses grow right out of the earth. And their construction goes at an organic pace. It depends on the rains, how many people are around, and the demands of other labors.