Day 7: Friday, February 25

Today was our last day of work—truly a bittersweet day. It ended with a celebration of our accomplishments and work this week, but I think the entire team, as tired and sore as we may be, wouldn’t really mind being able to stick around and finish things up! And, of course, we will certainly miss the people with whom we have been working!

The work itself was pretty basic, continuing the basic work of laying, tying in, and filling in the solera blocks, and finishing up the work on the floor. The neat thing was that we were far enough along for the electrician to come in and install the insulation for the wiring!

Around 2:30 we stopped work for the farewell ceremony. Before we got started, there was a chance just to enjoy being a part of the community for a bit. Alex let some of the older boys grab some of our floor tampers and parade around in the house for a bit, both letting them help in the construction and showing them how it’s done. We have some great videos of the routines they were working out.

We also got a chance to observe and even help out with the cooking of the celebratory feast. Cappie, Carolyn, and I tried our hand at making pupusas, earning a round of applause from the kids who were watching our every move. Even though it wasn’t that long since lunch, it was all smelling so delicious that it was making me hungry again!

Alex got up in front of the group and said a few words of thanks to everyone who worked on the house, and then invited Saoul and Jose to say something, as well. It was really great to hear them speak, as they talked about how much they enjoyed us and hoped we would return.

Then Alex called up the boys of the neighborhood, and after making them prove they had clean hands, they presented each of us with a certificate, a beautiful magnet, and a pretty cool ball cap.

I also presented the grandmother of the family with a plant from the nursery/hotel at which we were staying all week, explaining the American tradition of housewarming gifts. We had hidden the flowers when we arrived in the morning, but the kids found it. They understood it was a secret, but they made sure that it was kept watered and safe throughout the day. They kept asking when the surprise would happen!

We had also stopped on the way to the worksite this morning, not only to try to find a plumb bob for Don, but to pick up some gifts for the baby and for the young daughter of Jose. Of course, little did we know that we would arrive at the site to find that Heidi had been gone all day yesterday because when she went to her doctor’s appointment, he sent her to the hospital to give birth! We were happy to be able to celebrate with the family, if a little sad not to be able to say goodbye to Heidi.

Finally, it was time to eat! After our group had gotten our food, all the kids in the neighborhood got in line; Alex had given them tickets earlier, and they all got a small plate of food in exchange for their tickets. The adults then got a share, too. We were all happy that Habitat was able to share with the neighborhood like that.

When everyone had eaten, Pr. Tom led the group in blessing the house, with some translation help from Alex. Tonya, the regional architect, said that while we had blessed half the house, they had faith that the as-yet-unbuilt half would still be blessed.

Just before we left, we led the kids in the Hokey Pokey! They probably didn’t get the words, but they understood the concept, and anytime you get to jump around is fun! So we said our goodbyes, took our last 12-minute ride down the bumpiest, roughest “road” in the world, made it back to the paved road, and headed to the hotel.

Of course, as we were turning to head out of town, what passed us headed the way we had come but a big cement truck! Oh, well. Our way burned more calories!

Day 6: Thursday, February 24

I have to admit. There’s not a whole lot of new material to share today. We had another full day of work today, which meant that we were able to get two full rows completed, and then start the row of trench blocks, called “solera” blocks.

The solera blocks are u-shaped blocks. These go about 7 rows up from the foundation, and they mark the bottom of the windows in the house. They are shaped as they are to form a trench for additional rebar to be laid in horizontally and tied in with the vertical rebar for extra support. This was a big milestone. Not only because we had officially gotten farther than they had planned for the week, but because we can really start to see how we are building a house!

While some of us are laying the bricks, the rest are working on the floor. The interior of the house has to have dirt brought in and packed down very hard as a foundation for the floor. In keeping with the theme of not having the tools to make the job easy, we don’t have a nice machine to vibrate the dirt and pack it down. Instead, we have to cart the dirt in and use sticks stuck into coffee cans filled with cement to pack it down and make the floor as level as possible. It’s somewhat demoralizing to bring in a good 4-5 inches, pack it down and only have built up the floor about a half inch.

But we keep hauling and packing it down. We brought in a good block and half’s worth of plain dirt, and then added another layer of white sand (which packs more tightly) mixed with cement and sprinkled with water to create a harder base. Later, when they are putting in the finishing touches, they will pour a concrete floor, and probably put tile on top of that.

Unfortunately, John got sick tonight just after dinner. But he has the entire team, the Habitat staff, and the hotel staff to look after him, so I’m sure he’ll be fine soon. Hopefully he’ll be able to join us tomorrow, at least for the celebration tomorrow afternoon!

Day 5: Wednesday, February 23

Today was our first full day of work, and we made the most of it—3 rows of blocks!

We have had some wonderful weather this week, but today seemed much warmer, either due to higher temperatures or higher humidity. The breeze was also down a bit, so we really felt the heat today. At least our site starts and ends the day in shade, so there’s at least some relief!

Alex had a meeting for much of the day, so we were left alone for about four hours, which was no problem for us! Saoul, has learned that we rely on Cappie for translation help, and he will even yell for her himself if he has to explain something more complex than just gestures will allow.

If you are not familiar with El Salvador construction, El Salvador uses concrete block construction instead of the wood frame method that is most common in the United States. This makes the construction require a completely different skill set, and makes it harder for amateurs to build the walls. So the mason on site (and whomever he deems skilled enough to build walls that are straight) is in charge of laying the bricks. The rest of us contribute in a wide variety of other ways--putting the mortar (or mescala) on the bricks for the mason, putting the mortar inside the blocks after they're put onto the wall (that type of mortar is called chispa), cleaning up the site, or working on the ground in and around the house. Add in giving each other a chance to grab some water and a quick rest in the shade, and we are kept hopping!

The kids are still always around, and always willing to help whenever we will let them (we tend to be very hesitant to let them help, mostly due to safety issues of hauling heavy things like bricks around). They turned the math quizzes back on Carolyn—testing her Spanish as much as anything, but she did great! They also started showing off for us, little rhyming games and hand games. We often couldn’t understand what they were saying, but they sure had fun with them!

A little note about the food. We have breakfast every day at the

hotel, ranging from pancakes (with edible flowers) to more typical food like plantains and cheese. We have lunch on the site, which is brought in from a nearby restaurant with which Habitat has a contract. We also have a small snack every morning and every afternoon provided by the family. Dinner is back at the hotel, and is always large and delicious! Rest assured, we are not going hungry! We also are able to stay hydrated. There is a huge bottle of water on site, and we get more at the hotel, so we are able to stay safe, too.

Day 4: Tuesday, February 22

Today didn’t start with construction, which was perhaps a good thing, considering that we may have started a bit too quickly for our own good yesterday… Instead, we went to visit Villa Esperanza, the Thrivent community with 75 houses that was recently finished. Marti actually volunteered here before much of it was completed, so this was a chance for her to see the result of her hard work.

It was a really neat thing to see. Many of the houses, especially the ones that were completed in earlier stages of the development, had absolutely beautiful gardens. And, of course, so many things were in bloom! One of the homeowners was even generous enough to invite us in to see what the houses looked inside, and to see their backyard. They were growing all sorts of amazing things—pineapple, papayas, cashews, bananas, avocados, and beautiful geraniums!

In addition to the houses, Thrivent helped build a community center and a daycare center. We got to go into the daycare, where we watched them have a toothbrushing lesson before we had playtime! Kids are wonderful—there’s no need for any real language skills when playing with Play Doh!

When we returned to the site, the blocks were being delivered. We helped unload the truck, sorting the blocks by types and putting some of the blocks inside the house to be easily accessible as we build up the wall.

Following lunch, we got to laying the bricks! Don double-checked procedure with Saoul, and then we were able to have two crews working. This led to us being able to lay our entire first course of bricks before the end of the day, well ahead of the goal.

We also had a lot of fun with the kids today. Carolyn started yesterday quizzing the kids on basic math, but today we abandoned actual lessons for playing around with barnyard animal noises. There’s nothing quite like random clucking and crowing sounds throughout the day! Many of the kids have an amazing ability to whistle and then run their fingers over their lips, creating a parakeet-like sound. Carolyn and I are determined to learn how to do it!

Back at the hotel, we were relaxing, some of us were sitting out on a porch talking, when, at about 9:00, an earthquake hit! It was not very strong, but still rather disconcerting, especially for those of us who have never been in an earthquake before!

Day 3: Monday, February 21

Our first day of work wasn’t exactly easy, but we finished in grand style!

We had expected to be in a neighborhood of houses built by Thrivent, but it turns out that we are building on a single site in the middle of an existing community. For more information on the family for whom we are building and the community, please check out Cappie’s excellent write-up here.

Our house is at one of the earliest phases of construction. The foundation trenches are dug and the rebar installed, but we were in charge of pouring in the concrete to actually function as the foundation.Of course, there aren’t any automatic cement mixers around. Instead, we have shovels! The masons (Saoul, the head mason, assisted by his brother, Jose) gave us the desired recipe for the mixture, and then showed us their preferred method of mixing it. Basically, it involved shoveling into several piles and then back again, ensuring that all the ingredients are fully mixed together.

Then, you create a sort of volcano, add water in the middle, and gradually shovel all the dry ingredients into the middle. If you do it right, you wind up with a little compact pile, with the water all in the middle. Making a mistake results in water going everywhere! But by the end of the day, we had the technique down pat, which will serve us well the rest of the week!

Saoul is, of course, in charge. But with some help from Alex, Don was able to explain his construction experience, and Saoul became comfortable, after a short period of supervision, with letting him work on his own. This will come in extremely handy once we start laying brick!

We worked very well together as a group. In fact, we worked so well that we finished pouring the foundation well in advance of the end of the day. With our transportation not coming for another few hours, we were faced with several hours to kill. But then Pr. Tom noticed that we had used up the vast majority of the water that was designated for us to use during construction. He asked how the barrels would be refilled, and he learned that someone would have to travel a bit down the road to the community spigot, filling smaller water buckets, and then bring them back to the barrels. So we volunteered to take care of it.

Throughout the day (especially after lunch, once school let out), we had been attracting neighborhood children, especially the relatives of “our” family. In many of these families, the children are responsible for collecting the water and bringing it home as one of their daily chores. So we asked them to guide us and show us how it was done.

Thus began the parade of the gringos! Not only did we have the kids with us, but we attracted the attention of the rest of the neighborhood as we went, too. Some of the girls took charge of the spigot, turning the water on and off, and checking to see when our buckets were full. We’d then take the buckets back to the house to fill the barrels. While the rest of us were waiting, either for another of our buckets to fill or for another member of the community to get their water, we’d play with the kids, laughing and joking.

Of course, we also got huge laughs when several of the men decided to take the water back by carrying it on their head. This is a common method for carrying heavy or awkward items, but by women. Men usually carry the buckets over their shoulder. But the head is actually much easier and more comfortable!

Back at the hotel, the adventure was figuring out how to get hot water. Some cabins had a functioning hot water heater/showerhead (the heating coils are in the showerhead, heating the water as it flows), and others, well, not so much. Perhaps you might be able to see why…

Day 2: Sunday, February 20

This morning we attended church at the Lutheran Church of the Resurrection in San Salvador. This is the home church of Bishop Medardo Gomez, the Bishop of the Lutheran Church in ElSalvador. He has an amazing personal story, but more on that in a moment.

We were welcomed extremely warmly. On a personal note, I had a brief chance to catch up withMaria Trinidad, whom I have met on each of my previous trips. She runs both a homeless shelter and a sort of boarding house/hostel connected with the Lutheran Church, and she and her family are amazing.

But we were welcomed warmly by everyone, even by those who could not speak English. Pr. Tom was drafted to robe up andassist in presiding. As he tells it, he didn’t speak Spanish, and the pastor giving him directions didn’t have any English, so figuring out whatto do was pretty interesting… But they must have managed well, because Pr. Tom helped out through Confirmation and

Communion!

Carolyn also had the chance to read the Gospel. It was read in Spanish first, and then Carolyn read it in English, using a bilingual Bible that was provided by Carlos Avalos. Carlos is the Habitat El Salvador director of church relations, and he spent the day with us (at least until we left San Salvador).

At the end of the service, each of us was presented with a small wooden cross necklace and a hug by one of the children of the congregation. One little girl, in particular, was a most excellent hugger!

After the service, we all went back to Bishop Gomez’s office, where he spoke a bit about the work that the El Salvador Lutheran Church is doing. They are focusing a great deal on building communities, and most of their new members are people who are already familiar with Christianity, mostly Catholicism. It’s a small but growing church.

Bishop Gomez was also one of the voices that roundly criticized the government during the civil war in the 1980s. As a result, he had many threats on his life, and for a while had an international escort with him at all times. He was arrested several times, and his war experience sort of culminated with the story of the subversive cross.

After church we went for lunch at the El Arco Café, the place overlooking San Salvador where the group ate last year. We could tell there had been several new developments built (somewhat ruining part of the view), but the flowers were still beautiful and there were lots of clever and fun decorative items around.

From there we headed northwest, to the hotel that will be our home for the rest of the week. I have stayed here before, and it is a beautiful place—trees and flowers EVERYWHERE! We are staying in a series of small cabins, and then we head to the restaurant in the middle for breakfast and dinner. There are small porches in front of every cabin, and lots of open seating in the restaurant area where we can just sit and enjoy being with each other. It can get a little chilly at night since we’re so high up, but that’ll feel good after working in the sun all day!

We also met up with our last team member, Marti. She was vacationing in the time leading up to this, so she was only able to join us starting today. But we are all together now, and ready to go to work tomorrow!

Day 1: Saturday, February 19 (for real this time!)

Our flight left from DCA at 5:45, so it was a very early morning at the airport! But we all showed up in good time and made it through security in good order. When wearrived in San Salvador, we were greeted by throngs of people waiting to welcome their loved ones home.

We were met by Alex, who would be our guide and help for the week. He has been with Habitat for El Salvador for about a year, and he spends weeks at a time with teams of volunteers, working with them on the build site, translating, and generally acting as community relations for anyone that drops by the site.

From the airport we drove the 45 minutes or so to San Salvador, where we checked into ourhotel for the night, an extremely beautiful hotel called the Hotel Villa Terra. We settled in for a bit, and then a group of us went on a short walk around the neighborhood, just to check things out. We were too far to really get into the heart of downtown, but we enjoyed the ramble just the same.

One of the things we have noticed are the ever-present armed guards, at pretty much every store, and definitely at every hotel. We asked, and Alex told us that it was to guard against thieves and other forms of crime; we speculated that it was a case of a store having to hire a guard so as not to be more vulnerable than its neighbors. We kept being reassured that there wasn’t that much crime, but these pistol-grip shotguns didn’t really ease our minds. Still, every guard we met was super nice!

It’s also incredible to note all the flowers and trees in bloom. It’s mind-boggling to think that it’s the middle of February, and there are things blooming all over, even though this is the “dry season,” so the open areas are not as green as they are in the wetter times. Still, it is beautiful!

After the walk, most of the group found a small taco stand, where they had some drinks andlight food (we didn’t have any food on the planes, so we were quite hungry!).

For dinner, Alex took the group to a (very popular) restaurant, one of his favorites, which specializes in “typico” food—pupusas (stuffed corn tortillas—practically the national food of El Salvador), plantains, beans, tamales, fried yucca, and lots of other delicious food and drink! We also ate with another group in El Salvador at the same time. They were from Canada, and they will be building in a completely different area of the country.

While everything was so delicious, it had been a very long day, and it is time for bed!

A note about the upcoming posts

So, even though it has taken me way too long to get these up, I have tried to write them as if I were able to write and post every night on the trip. It may seem a little ridiculous, but I'll also be posting once a day over the same time period as our trip. Please enjoy!