Friday, November 15, 2019
I started the morning just walking around the hotel grounds, taking in the whole experience.
I enjoy seeing and hearing these monkeys each day, which are all over the grounds of the hotel. Nature never ceases to impress.
Day 2 of the Habitat Build went really well. I feel 100% better and was able to do a lot more than yesterday. We’re building with cement block foundations and then there’s lots of brick and matrope (the chickewa word for the “mortar” mix they use between layers).
Cement blocks are heavy. Really heavy. They get heavier as the day goes on and it gets hotter. A temperature check around 3:30 pm showed that it was 100.4°, so I call that another scorcher of a day. There was a nice breeze that blew intermittently and that made a huge difference, too.
Highs:
1. I feel like we made huge progress building today! The walls are going up, up, up and our progress is very visible and encouraging. Tomorrow, we’ll probably need scaffolding on at least two of the houses to continue, and possibly the third.
2. I had much more energy today, and in many conversation with various team members, we all agree that we’re acclimatizing, which makes us more efficient and productive.
3. This team is AMAZING! (I think everyone on this team is my new best friend!) A handful of us are newbies to the GV world, but for most of the group, this is not their first GV build. Bob and Leslie, our team leaders, says this is GV #53 for them. If you’re wondering what servant leaders looks like, they look like Leslie & Bob! (I’ll try to get a photo of them tomorrow.) Several others have led their own teams and at least 1/2 dozen of the team have 6 of more builds under their belts.
Lows:
I was wrong about the latrines. As part of our Habitat build, each of the family’s getting a home will also have one of the three latrines. They are NOT for the entire village to use. At first, that seemed so wrong to me, but it was explained to me that the sanitation department (or whatever it’s called) has a six person limit per latrine, and each is supposed to last for many years.
There are 601 people in the village (it was one of the questions we asked) so it’s obvious why they can’t allow community access to them. I asked to cost of building each latrine, and it’s about $1,500 (USD). One of the local Habitat workers pointed out that many villagers have built their own crude latrines. Most are made from rough (unfired) clay bricks, so they often rapidly deteriorate from heavy rains (when it actually does rain) but many families don’t have one at all.
Other things to share: Meredith witnessed a few little girls just lifting their dresses, squatting, urinating on the ground, then continuing on. Those types of issues mean that it’s not just dirt on the ground, so the risk of infection from cuts and scrapes is much higher. Most of the villagers seem to be barefoot, which appears to financial and not by choice.
What you may not realize from reading this is that the villagers are a proud people, and they keep their village CLEAN! It may not sound that way from what I’ve described, but the picture of garbage and litter in my photos is what most of the sides of the populated streets and roadways looks like. You’ll notice the ground around the village homes remain relatively clear— they burn all their garbage and detritus (yes, I know how horrible and unhealthy it is to burn plastics, but that’s a separate issue).
Our GV group has so many questions we ask as we try to gain a better understanding of the conditions we see. I’ll try to share some of those questions and answers.
I know my posts are long, and I appreciate being able to share this journey with you. There is just SO much to take in and my learning curve about the political, social and cultural structure is steep. I may have to try to make 2-3 posts a day (The WiFi has been horrible, but hey, that’s a first world problem, so I count my blessings….)
