Elizabeth's adventures in Paraguay!: The family business

Following the trip to the lake we went to tour the ceramic factory that my host mother’s family owns. In the factories they make bricks and shingles. They have three different factories which each employ one hundred and fifty people. This is just the kind of jobs that Paraguayans need. We went in and saw the entire process of how the brick was made from start to finish. Process is below:

First they get this type of dirt mixture. They add three different types in order to insure the correct product. Then in the machine in the photo the process the dirt inorder to make it easier to mold and process.

Once the dirt is processed and molded into form it is transfered into the drying area for 48 hours in order to get any excess moisture out of them before they are put into the oven.

once they are dried for 48 hours they are transfered into the oven which runs about 1740F all day everyday . The reason it runs 24/7 is because to reheat the whole oven it takes days therefore they never turn it off.

the oven is heated with about 15 of these compartments that burn off of wood shavings. There are people always shoveling shavings into these ovens to keep them burning.

this is the company logo which also shows the finished products.

On the same property that they have this particular factory they also happen to have somewhat of a zoo of birds because my host grandfather loves birds. After the tour of the factory we went and saw some of the birds.