The Brick maker

Our next door neighbor is a brick maker.  He and his helpers work long hours  six days a week.  He told me they make about 15,000 bricks per month.  He sells them for 1 and 1/2 pesos each.  That equals $1,730 U. S.per month.  Then, he needs to pay for labor, material and all other overhead.  He probably nets $500 per month.  You can see he works very hard for his money.

The soil used for the bricks is all hand mixed.

Those are wood forms by his left leg.  He dumps the material in, smooths it, then lifts the form.

Needs to dry in the sun for several days as part of the curing process.

 Constructing the kiln.

Almost done.  The openings at the bottom provide spaces to add wood as needed to complete the firing of the bricks.

This is the owner.  He tells me they need to be careful when handling the bricks because there are lots of Scorpions!

The total time needed for firing the brick is about a week.

This looks like the smoke is forming the clouds.

The finished bricks are used to construct an entryway at a house down the road from us.