Adventures in El Salvador - part I

Me with Patty, the Habitat para la Humanidad El Salvador, representative who coordinated our trip

This January, I had served as the Team Leader for a group of Elmhurst students and staff who traveled to El Salvador (Central America) for a 12-day service and learning experience with Habitat for Humanity.

In case you are uncertain about where El Salvador is located, it's just south of Mexico and Guatemala, next to Honduras. It's the smallest country in Central America, with just over 6 million people living there (about 2.5 times the size of Chicago or less than the population of New York City). To give you a point of reference for the size, the entire country is comparable in size to the state of Massachusetts.

The schedule was set up so that we worked with a partner family for 2 1/2 days to build a house, traveled for about 4 days, and then returned to build with the same partner family for another 2 1/2 days.  For the purpose of this post, I'll share about the building components of the trip. I'll use another post to talk about the travel/ learning components.

When we arrived on Sunday, January 19th, we traveled to the city of Usulutan, in the south eastern part of the country, and which is located in the department (i.e., state) of Usulutan. Our first work day, we arrived to the family land of Manuel and Rosa, who were giving a parcel of the property to their son (Wilbur), daughter-in-law (Mari), and two grandchildren (Fernando and Ashley). The photo to the right gives you an idea of what had been done already - trenches for the foundation had been dug and rebar had been bent and laid. That meant our main task for moving forward was mixing and pouring cement, laying brick, and leveling the land for a sidewalk.

Building a house in El Salvador is a LOT different than building a house in many places in the U.S. Aside from not using wood, hammers, and nails, there's an entirely unfamiliar level of creativity and resourcefulness that's required. Generally speaking, if you don't have the right supplies here in the U.S. - even if you're building a Habitat house - you run out to the store to purchase whatever you're missing. When you're building a Habitat house in El Salvador, you evaluate your resources and make it work. Our group was pleasantly surprised and challenged multiple times when there weren't enough tools for everyone to work or the most appropriate tool wasn't available to us.

While building is the obvious reason for a trip with Habitat for Humanity, what is most remarkable about such travel is NOT the building... though that is a rewarding and exciting part of the experience, for sure. Instead, it's the amazing relationships you can build in a short period of time with the people on the work site.

Mari and Ashley, the mom and daughter of the partner family

Rolando, the brother of partner family member Wilbur, at his home, with Mari and Ashley and EC team members Sarah, Christina, Britni, and Linda

Oscar, the lead mason on our work site

"Little Oscar," the other mason on our work site

Me with Rosa, the mother of the partner family and a wonderful, warm woman who raised 9 children

Jesus, our amazing Habitat staff person. He gave us the "Jesus experience," which meant we worked hard, learned a lot, and had a ton of fun!

 

Brian, translator extraordinaire, who helped me communicate with all of the wonderful people we met!

Manuel, father of the partner family dad, Wilbur

By the end of the week, we were very sad to leave all of these wonderful people, along with the amazing staff of Habitat El Salvador and our translator. That said, we were super proud of our building efforts.

This isn't the clearest picture, but you can get a really good sense of how much work we completed during our 5 days of building!