Once the midday fire has gone out of the sun, the workers emerge with a forest of wooden scaffolding poles. The rubble has been cleared, the cement put down and the red bricks are going up in neat rows as Kosovo's Albanian villages start to put order on their lives once again.
Two months after the mass return of refugees to their devastated villages, the rebuilding process is gathering momentum. Winters are cruel and cold here, and no one wants to be without a roof.
Even as demonstrators were massing on the bridge in Mitrovica in northern Kosovo this weekend, shopkeepers were rebuilding their properties in the town's main street. Meanwhile, in the nearby village of Cabra the EU was launching its own reconstruction programme, which will eventually employ 10,000 people in the province.
The scale of the resources being thrown at Kosovo is breathtaking. The UN, the EU, NATO and the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe are the main pillars of a massive humanitarian effort to rebuild the region and establish a Western-style political system.
International donors have pledged €2 billion so far, with plenty more to come. The EU is spending €140 million on house-building alone this year, with €400 million more coming as humanitarian aid. The best and brightest in the world of humanitarian assistance have dropped everything to rush to the assistance of Kosovo.
It's small wonder some aid agencies and politicians are concerned that Kosovo, with its population of just over two million, is siphoning off resources from more needy cases in the developing world. The relief effort here coincides with proposals before the European Commission to cut aid to developing nations.
Ms Glenys Kinnock, the British MEP, said it was "unacceptable" to take money away from the poorest nations to pay for the crisis in Kosovo. The UN Secretary-General has pointed out the disparity in treatment between Kosovo and Sierra Leone, for example.
Yet the UN is here in force. So are the aid agencies, more than 190 of them so far. They raised millions on the back of the television images of Kosovo, and now they must find ways of spending this windfall.
"It's a major challenge even to try to ensure some degree of co-ordination between all these bodies," said Mr Denis McNamara, of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. "We heard all about the humanitarian war, but what we're faced with now is the humanitarian peace, and winning that could prove even more difficult." The international community thinks it has done a good job so far. "Eight weeks ago we came to a place that was devastated in every way. Today Kosovo has changed enormously, though a lot remains to be done. Relative normality has been established," said Mr Dominique Vian, of the UN Mission in Kosovo.
The key to the creation of normality is the provision of even-handed justice and a democratic system. US marines and British squaddies can't go on keeping the peace on the streets of Pristina for ever.
The first police training school will open to 200 aspiring officers next week. Ultimately, it is planned to recruit 3,500 police who will gradually assume the functions currently being carried out by soldiers or military police with Kfor. It is hoped 20 per cent of the intake will be female and 10 to 15 per cent from ethnic minorities.
To fill the information vacuum, Radio Pristina was launched last week and a new television service should start operating next month. Political parties are to receive logistical support, and local administrators will be provided with special training. The post office reopened last week.
As for elections, they are "the concern of tomorrow, not today", according to Mr Daan Everts, of the OSCE. As a first step, a programme of voter registration is due to start next year.
The only good thing about Pristina's erratic electricity and water supply at present is that you don't have to pay for them. With no functioning government and a records system that disappeared during the war, Kosovo is a place virtually free of taxes, service charges and bureaucracy.
The streets of Pristina are full of fancy German- and Swiss-registered cars, imported duty-free by "entrepreneurs" taking advantage of the lack of control. Rubbish piles up at the edges of towns because no one is being paid to remove it.
But this won't last for long. UNMIK plans to drag Kosovo into the market economy, and its targets are high. Ms Joan Pearce, of the EU's reconstruction and development office, said: "It's clear that the damage caused by the war is only a small part of what is holding back the economy. Kosovo has suffered years of neglect and underdevelopment so simple reconstruction of what existed before is too modest an aim for us."
With winter not so far away, housing is the priority for many. Estimates of the number of homes damaged during the conflict vary between 50,000 and 80,000. UNHCR is providing simple shelter kits as an emergency measures, and plans to give incentives to host families to take in others.
Aid officials talk of completing their work in less than two years, and then pulling out. Privately, they admit to past failures - in Rwanda, for example - and hope Kosovo will be different. Throwing money at the problem might just solve it, they say. If only.
Reuters adds: Kosovan Albanians yesterday protested for the fourth day running at the division of the town of Mitrovica.
French troops have barred unruly crowds of ethnic Albanians from marching into the Serb-dominated north side of Mitrovica. Ethnic Albanians complain of being denied access to property seized by Serbs in war.
Scuffling broke out and a French soldier suffered severe concussion on Monday when he was hit on the head with a rock. Yesterday's protest was much smaller and peaceful.