Rock the House

I just signed up (sent in my deposit of $350) to join a Habitat Humanity Global Village team in El Salvador this March. I don't know exactly where in El Salvador we will be or exactly what we will be doing. All I know is that we will be working to give a house to a homeless family. 

I am excited about this adventure, but it is also reminding me of one of the worst weeks of my life. Remember when I volunteered for Un Techo Para Mi Pais in Costa Rica? It rained the entire time, and I didn't have boots or a rain jacket. We slept on the concrete floor of a school and didn't even have access to showers. No, you don't remember? Well, here's an excerpt from a previous post to remind you:

Some highlights included washing my face with sewer water, bathing in a men’s urinal and working four days straight in constant rain and mud. On the second morning, I cried and was just about to walk out on the project when my friend Dan gave the whole group of soggy gringos a pep talk. 

“We are Americans from the United States,” he said. “We don’t quit. It’s in our blood to stay longer than is really necessary. Take the Vietnam War. Or the Iraq War. Or The Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy.” 

With that we all felt a surge of pride and headed out into the rain and mud to prove we don’t quit. But ultimately all but three of us did quit. I left on the morning of the last day when the blisters on the bottoms of my feet had finally gotten the best of me. Oh, what sweet pain I felt limping my way to the bus stop! I have photos to post, but the Internet is running so slowly today, I think I will wait to post them later.

Another thing that sticks with me from that experience was a little girl that lived in one of the garbage-bag houses we were replacing. She was a gorgeous little girl with lots of energy. Sometimes I would sneak out of the rain to play with her in her little mud-floor home. I would sit on a wooden stump while she jumped on the bed and talked away in a Spanish I didn't really understand. Then she said she wanted to watch a movie, and sure enough, even in the garbage-bag house, there was a TV and DVD player. She popped in the disk and settled in to watch the flick. And a flick it was! I've never seen such. It was porn! Naked people having sex! She was grinning from ear to ear and didn't really seem to understand why I was getting upset. Finally, after I threatened to go back to the rain and build her house, she took the DVD out and returned to jumping on the bed. 


The good news is that I know for a fact that the Habitat for Humanity build will be better than the Un Techo Para Mi Pais build because NOTHING could be worse than the Un Techo Para Mi Pais build.


Here are those photos I promised:

Costa Rica 2011

Nearly three years ago, I quit my job as a newspaper reporter to move to Costa Rica to be a volunteer English teacher. I lived with a Costan Rica family for a year and a half in a little town called Potrero Grande.

Last week I went back to visit. It was great to be back there, feeling and experiencing all of the same things I felt and experienced three years ago. When I first moved there everything was new and different. I had to learn a new language, a new way of life. This time, however, all of those things that seemed so different before seemed familiar and nostalgic.

I loved seeing my host family. It has grown by three grandchildren since I left. I walked all of my old favorite routes through the rocky roads around town. The views were the same -- stunning and peaceful.

HIP Mentoring

Ecuador

Into the Jungle

Near the end of the week I spent volunteering in Ecuador, we went much deeper into the rain forest to visit a tiny little school in a tiny little village, the name of which I cannot remember. It was something short, one-syllabled. The village was more unlike any village I've ever seen. We woke up that morning to rain. We had a quick breakfast at the hotel then took a cab out of town. The taxi carried us over a gravel road and through river until we reached a bus stop.

This bus stop was just a lonely little covered bench on the side of a

narrow gravel road. There was absolutely nothing else around, just rain forest. After a short wait, a Peace Corp volunteer directed us to a footpath into the forest and off we took, on foot.

The walk wasn't that long, and soon we were at a river, the name of which I cannot remember either. There were two young men waiting for us at the river with a handmade boat cut out of a tree trunk. They each had long, long sticks that they used to steer the boat through the roaring river. They were speaking an indigenous language but quickly switched over to Spanish for our benefit. Another volunteer stepped carefully into the boat, and we followed the directions to squat down and hold on to the sides. I was a little nervous.

We made it to the other side where we were greeted by a few people from the little town. When the rest of our group had arrived, we walked over to the school, which was surprising to me. It was an ugly, wet, unpainted collected of boards nailed together and hoisted on stilts. There was one classroom downstairs and two upstairs. The students all wore government-issued sweatsuits and sat in handmade desks of wood. They were quiet. I felt like I was imposing.

As a fifth-grade science teacher, I really appreciated the student work hanging on the school wall.

After facilitating an art exchange and getting to know the school and students, we all walked back over to river and waited while the students prepared a traditional dance for us. I asked for a bathroom. I followed the instructions to walk 15 meters into the forest, and I found it:

So that was interesting. And finally, after much preparation, the dancers were ready.

One of the volunteers in our group, a 16-year old high-schooler, is a trained ballet dancer. She has been dancing much of her life. I was impressed when she danced in rubber boots on the muddy jungle floor. It was really cool and will certainly be a story to tell on her college entrance essays. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of it. Instead, I have a couple of pictures of all of us free styling together in a big circle. We didn't even have music. It was a great experience.

Ecuador

Ecuador

Adventures in Food

Chicha de yuca: A homemade fermented drink made from yuca root

Torre de platano: The most delicious meal I ate in Ecuador

Before: Freshly caught fish cooked in a palm leaf

After: What is left of a freshly caught fish cooked in a palm leaf

Chicha de chonta: Same as chicha de yuca above but made with chonta

Armadillo: A tough dark meat that I don't recommend

Energy drinks: Coca

Veggies: My second favorite meal in Ecuador

Roasting cuy: Roasting guinea pigs

Roasted cuy: Roasted guinea pig

Cuy: Soon to be roasted

Travel snack: A warm pocket of deliciousness

Ecuador

In March, I traveled to Ecuador with OneWorld Classrooms, an organization that seeks to connect classrooms all over the world in an effort to promote cultural understanding. There are dozens of classrooms in the United States that each year partner with dozens of classrooms in the Amazon Rainforest. These classes share artwork, stories and videos with each other, and classes in the United States have access to math, reading and social studies curriculum related to the rain forest. As for the classrooms in Ecuador, they get real, live visitors from the United States who facilitate the cultural sharing. I was one of those volunteers, along with six others whose skills ranged from teaching, Spanish, dance, and videography. We visited five schools, each day going deeper into the rain forest.

At the time, I was very busy with my job as a fifth grade teacher in Dallas, and I didn't have much time to write about my experience. Now, nearly 10 months later, I am finally sitting down to at least post some photos.