When Felix Karlin hears news reports about the need for aid in Africa, he thinks about a widow with eight children living in Mozambique.

Karlin and nine other volunteers from Lawrence Habitat for Humanity recently returned from a 2 1/2-week trip to the southeastern African nation, building a two-bedroom house out of concrete blocks for the widow and her family.

For the volunteers, the experience put a face on the issue of foreign aid to Africa, which has been a focus of the Group of Eight meeting of world leaders this week in Scotland.

“For me, it was an eye-opener,” said Karlin, a retired phone company worker. “You’ve seen poverty on TV, but to see how they really live and as hard as they work just to get water, you see what we take for granted.”

The group nearly finished the 15-by-35-foot house on the island of Inhaca, which has about 6,000 residents. It poured the foundation for a second house.

Most of the people living in the area fished or gardened for food, said Jerry Feese, another volunteer. There were few paved roads and no electricity or running water in homes. Most of the houses were thatched huts with dirt floors.

“There’s definitely a need,” Feese said. “It’s not a very wealthy place. But it was amazing just how friendly and happy the people were with what we would consider so little materialistically.”

Lawrence Habitat for Humanity has an affiliation with its sister organization in Mozambique, sending funds to the African nation each year. This is the first building trip the Lawrence chapter has taken there.

The group, which returned June 22, worked long days alongside the family to get the house completed.

“We worked a full day, and I’d say we worked hard,” Feese said. “We were certainly tired by the end of the day.”

The volunteers didn’t have electric tools and had to form their own concrete blocks. Although the house was simple, Karlin said the new owners were overjoyed.

“I think it does us more good to see they’re people just like us,” he said. “When the house was done, she was as happy as if she had a $100,000 house.”