So this week we are helping to build homes in what will eventually be a 31 house development in Barrio El Rosario outside Santa Rosa de Copan, Honduras. To lower the cost in order to serve poorer families, the Habitat affiliate has decided to build the homes from adobe bricks rather than cinderblocks. We have been helping to make bricks, including harvesting pine straw (an ingredient in the adobe) from a nearby pine forest, and a few of our team have helped to lay some bricks on the first of the homes.
If you placed a high monetary value on time, adobe would not be your choice. It is extremely labor intensive, but when you have an abundance of labor and indigenous material, it makes sense.
Habitat Wake along with the other Habitat affiliates in the Triangle, helped Habitat Honduras purchase this site and make it possible for families that do not own land to have a decent place to live. I am proud to be a part of our build team this week and to be presented with a lesson that, unlike in our culture, time is not always money.