November 29 Last Day

Our last day together was spent on the beach. Mojito is now a standard term amongst the group. Some of us took a little too much sun (Camille and Tony) as evidenced by the burning red skin. Others picked up scrapes and bruises as they were tossed around by the waves. And Rahim and Ava took a spin in a dune buggy. Dave and Henry also took a spin and came back accident free.

Tomorrow we all leave at various times to return to our daily life. The team has been outstanding. A real bunch of self-starters. As team leaders Paul and I couldn´t have picked a better group. We thank all of our team members for their contribution for a very succesful trip to El Savador and we hope that we can do it again.

Tony Bennett

November 28 R and R

Well we have finally left San Vicente with mixed emotions. Our work is done and we have left many new friends. It was a rewarding week for all and we will surely miss St. Vicente and the many people whose lives we touched.

Our day was spent shopping for textiles and pottery. After all the obligatory purchases. we were on our way to Rancho Estero. Before we could get there though our bus had a flat tire. Try changing a tire in 35 degree heat. It only took 25 minutes and before you knew it we were back on our way to the beach.

The waves are incedible at Rancho Estero. We spent ours getting tossed and turned in the ocean. The weather is a welcome retreat from what we will experience once we get back to Canada. The Sangria has been oustanding and the accomodations are terrific. One more day and then we all head back to Canada on Monday. We will see you soon.

Tony Bennett

Day 5 Jhonny's blog

espero que todos disfruten estas fotos por que fueron tomadas con mucho amor. If you want to read this go to google translation.

Day 5 November 27 Build is finished

Another successful build for our volunteers. The appreciation of the families was genuine. I believe many on our team have had a memorable experience. We hope it has been evrything they had expected, it certainly was for Paul and I. We are seriously considering another El salvador build nrext year.

After the build finished at lunch we had our closing ceremony with the families. Each of our team members was given a team picture and certificate from Habitat. After that many of us visited an orphanage. There were about 100 kids each living in a house with a mom. The houses were bigger than the typical Habitat house and were well equipped to provide a comfortable lifestyle for the kids.

We also visited a Habitat site that had homes that were started by Joe McGuire's team. They were looking great and had a mountain view of St. Vicente.

Tomorrow we leave for the ocean. Everyone is looking forward to a couple of days of R & R.

Day 5 Nov 27th

Friday... a bitter sweet day for those on any Habitat Build. You have spent five days of blood, sweat (lots of sweat) and probably tears. You have used muscles that you have forgotten. Your feet ache to be free of your boots. Your head hurts, your skin burns (sorry honey sunscreen is sometimes forgotten) and maybe... even in the hardest of hearts... you begin again to understand. In reality this understanding started on day one and has grown over the week.

This day all teams worked til noon laying brick and mixing motar and then went to the San Vincente Habitat office for a closing ceremony. We had lunch as a team (the first time all week) and were joined by the families of those we built for and the mason and their helpers as well. It was a wonderful, emotional experience. I cannot stress enough the joy and gratitude expressed by the families and masons. They were so grateful that our team came here to help them.

After the ceremony the majority of the team went to a local orphanage and played Duck duck goose and capture the flag.(Tony will blog on this later)
Five others went to the closest build site and continued to build in preparation for the mass build that begins next week.

We came here to El Salvador as individuals. Thanks to Tony and Paul we will leave as a team. We will leave better for our experience, better for the meeting of new people, the sharing of our cultures.

One last thought...
There are many of us who go through life thinking how can I be the best I can be... and you excel. You do everything you can to make yours and those you love better.
I challenge this...I challenge all who read this to think outside the box, your comfort zone. I know travelling to a foreign country is an extreme for many. Start small, start local.

I spoke earlier of understanding. I am one whose is closed. The things that I think and feel are not always shared. I will share this...this country is filled with HARD working, good, honest people who have touched me. Children smile and greet you everywhere. Your eyes are always met when greeted on the street. Everyone takes great pride in their appearance. There is pride in every home, effort in every job. They don´t need pity because they don´t pity themselves. They live with tragedy everyday and get up and move on.
If anything what they need you will give them with caring.


Chris

Day 4 November 26

Another typical sunny 35 degree day in St. Vicente. All three teams had very productive days and are looking forward to having a big finish tomorrow. The true brick laying skills were evident today from many team members. We had an El Salvadorian turkey dinner tonight with all the fixings. It was terrific.

Tomorrow is the last build day as we will be having our closing ceremonies at 12:00. The remainder of the afternoon will be spent visiting a local orphanage where we drop of donated items. A couple more people have experienced some stomach discomfort, I think we are up to five casualties but all seem to be recovering well.

The only mishap today was a lost plastic ball. Tony kicked a little guy's ball onto a roof that was not accessable. All was not lost as the little guy had received one of Chris's soccer balls a day earlier and Tony paid him a dollar for his loss.

Bill made friends teaching English today, looks like he has a new career, Barry and Gerry may be staying an extra week as their masonary skills were on full display. And Jeff continues to be the most lubricated man in El Salvador as he has already gone through three tubes of sunscreen.

John Lindsay is still eating, Rahim has turned out to be an excellent translator, Ron and Jane hooked up again on the build site, Sasha got hit with the dreaded stomach ailment in the afternoon after Dave had spent the night hugging the toilet. Jillian was welcomed back to her team after spending a day with her dad Henry on Wednesday. Paul continues to lead his team in the tighest of working conditions and was the recipient of an El Salvadorian machete which was small for Paul's liking.

Our translator Jhonny went home early tonight to rest for our last day. Till tomorrow.

Tony Bennett

Some great comfy clothes were lost today :(

Today I think I lost a favourite t-shirt and my favourite MEC pants :( It was cement mixing day and this is basically how you do it:

1) Shovel a bunch of sand into a wheelbarrow - move into a pile. Repeat 2 - 4 times depending how much you need.
2) Shovel a bunch of gravel into a wheelbarrow - move into the same pile. Repeat 1 - 3 times.
3) Pick up a HUGE bag of cement powder and add the contents into the pile. Use 1 - 2 bags.
4) Mix together twice with kind of a pancake folding motion with your shovels.
5) Make a well in the middle.
6) Add a whole bunch of water - you usually have to transport the buckets of water some distance to said pile
7) Mix in a circular motion (picture the cement trucks)catching drips as they occur.

So by this time you are covered in sweat and cement dust, and your boots (which you keep thanking heavens are waterproof) are getting heavier and heavier. Then you have to shovel the cement into a bucket to move it to the location you want. The buckets are pretty heavy so after huging 3 of them to my chest I switched up to shoveling. My aim got better as the day went on. Anyhoo, I can't put these pants and shirt into a washing machine because they might clog it up - any suggestions?

Today was awesome - we got so much done on the house! We got cement laid down, then after it dried a little (the sun is really hot so it happened faster than expected) started adding some bricks. We got one layer done. But I am exhausted. I can't believe how much my body hurts and I still have tomorrow to go. But I am super super proud of myself actually - my manual labour blisters are developing nicely :)

In non building news, we saw the remains of the town most affected by the floods yesterday - it was unbelievable. Today we saw some of the damage closer to our build site not even a hundred feet from where we are building. As we were walking back a man invited us to his house to see his birds (I know!! I would never fall for that in Canada) and showed us around his property which was beautiful. And then I bonded with a tiny blonde baby.

Tomorrow is our last day of building and then we say goodbye to all the people that we've worked with which will be so sad. The little girl who has been our guide is making us bean soup so I'm excited. And a little nervous. And then we're off for R'nR which will be really fun I think.

We've had about 5 people go down with stomach issues - luckily neither me nor my roomate so wish us luck!! And I'm using sunscreen so I'm not burned to a crisp yet. Things are still great here - hope all is well back home! See you soon, have a great evening,
Ava

Day Four - Room 9

Time to find new room mates. Dave had the ring of fire last night and kept us up with 20 or so purge sessions on the big throne. We are out of toilet paper and he is off of the hot sauce and on the Imodium big-time. Sasha thought that was funny until the sausage that he thought tasted great at the pool hall didn t tast so good out the way out - both outlets, big-time. The trip has turned a little crappy. Oh well, more beer for me...Adious Amigoes (Jeff)

Day 4, 26 de noviembre

Hola amigos y amigas!

Day 4 of the build was great and our team made a lot of progress! We had a nice breeze for many parts of the day and it was welcome with open arms. Our bodies have finally adjusted to the extreme heat & workout and we were ready for another day of shovelling and cement mixing! My back muscles are going to be so amazing after this trip :-)

Our team was sans Patty today so I had to fake being a Spanish translator again. I think it went well... no faux pas or terribly confused faces from our Salvadoran friends. Thankfully, Jane had her Spanish-English dictionary, which came in handy when trying to figure out what the mysterious pink-bagged drink was at lunch (the unknown word translated to "barley" which we are almost certain was wrong!).

Enrique, our mason, brought photos of his new 10 month old baby to show our team... very cute! The locals kids were out and about again and some helped us with a bit of shovelling.

Apparently, a small earthquake was felt midday today, but some of us thought it was the rattling muffler from a passing truck. Nothing too crazy!

Tonight, we're celebrating US Thanksgiving! The cooks had the best of intentions... looking forward to a turkey dinner!

Tomorrow is our last day of building. It's going to be an emotional day!

Ciao for now!
Rahim

Day 3 November 25 2009

Day 3 starts with 35 degrees weather. All three sites are faced with finishing the concrete pouring for the foundations. Our expecation is to lay bricks for Thursday and Friday. Time is of the essence as we prepare three homes for the the major building blitz that will take place next week. It is expected that 500 volunteers from El Salvador will participate in St Vicente for this major iniative.

The support from Patty Cordero, national coordinator for Habitat in El Salvador, has been exceptional. We have felt very welcomed since we have arrived in El Salvador. Our translator Jhonny has been with us every day and has been an unexpected surprise to all of us. He has been a great addition to the trip. As recently as Monday night he represented El salvador in a major international pool tournament against Ron Dunning and Dave Gervais from Canada. It looked as though Jhonny lost on purpose in order to be a good host. As a good host Jhonny has been promised a pair of Under Armor underware for Christmas from Tony.

In today´s other activities Chris beat the beans and bagged corn. Apparently their jobsite had little to do today as they did not receive their gravel for the concrete. John Lindsay apparently likes the food, surprise surprise and Sasha Gupta did a great job reading our meetings final passage today. Ron had a minor case of upset stomach but Gerry was back in fine form after two days in sickbay.

The build was cut short today in order for the team to visit more of the disaster area. We had a firsthand look at the destruction from Chin Chon Te Pec, the volcanoe that created the mudslides. We visited Vera Paz and Guadelupe today. The destruction was enormous as we witnessed the massive mudslide tracks down the side of the volcanoe. Hundreds of homes were completely wiped out. Upwards of 70 confirmed deaths and more than 400 missing. I can assure you from the destruction most of those 400 are burried somewhere under the mud and rocks. We also came a cross Shelter in a Box. A first response group that provides immediate relief to the homeless from disaters who are homeless. It was impressive as they appear to be the only relief agency around.

Our build has become more important as Habitat has increased the number of houses it hopes to build in this region due to the disaster. Thursday promises to be a good day as Paul, Tony and Chris´s teams all pour concrete and begin to block the home. An added bonus is that the local hotel is preparing a Thanksgiving dinner for our team Thursday. We didn´t have the heart to tell them that our Thanksgiving was in early October. Tonight´s meal was pupasa, the national food of El Salvador. It was oustanding. As well as eating them we also helped prepare them. A truly El Savadorian experience. Please check tomorrow´s blog from another member of our team.

Tony Bennett

Day 2: I pushed a bus!

Hi everyone, this is my first blog attempt ever so be kind :) Today was the second day of building and it was much less intense than the first. Yesterday was a lot of digging and cement mixing but today was more about laying down the rebar and setting up the frame of the house. I have never done anything like this before so it's a pretty steep learning curve helped A LOT by the amazing mason at our site not to mention my other team members (kudos guys!). But my favourite part is definitely meeting the members of the community - there is one beautiful little girl in particular who has decided that she's going to teach me Spanish if it kills her. And it might. But my vocabulary has tripled in the last two days so she's doing a pretty good job! She took us on a tour of the area, brought us some sugar cane and also introduced us to her family who taught us to make tortillas. I have never felt so welcome before. The rest of her entourage is pretty good too - all young children with huge eyes who are so eager to talk to you (even though it's pretty clear you're just doing a lot of smiling and nodding) and hand you anything that you need (you would be surprised how much information you can communicate with the words "mas, menos, poquita and otra (sp?)).

I bet by now you're wondering - where does the bus come in??! At the end of the day our bus pulled up but we weren't quite done so we asked him to wait. And he very kindly did. But then by the time we got on the bus and he tried to start it, it just kept rolling backward. So out we got and went to the back. And pushed. And pushed. And then pushed some more. For a minute I wondered how to tell my parents the story of me hitchhiking back to the hotel but the "Viper Bus" didn't let us down!! Although tomorrow we'll definitely be ready and waiting at the side of the road :)

Tomorrow we're going to a site that's been hard hit by the floods and we'll also be making our own pupusas. Yup, it'll be as fantastic as it sounds :) You too could be here!

I know that I have a few days to go but I'm pretty sure this is the most amazing thing I've ever done. I'm so happy that I'm here and with this group of people - I know it's cliche but this is definitely life changing. See you tomorrow!

Ava

November 22 2009

Our first full day in El Salvador. The entire team had now arrived at the Mariscal Hotel in San Salvador. We had breakfast at the hotel and then met for a team meeting with Patty Cordero. We packed up the bus with all our luggage and were taken to the Market in San Salvador as well as the Cathedral where the Archbishop Oscar Romero was buried. We then went to San Vicente to the hotel where we would be staying for the week. After lunch we met the San Vicente Habitat for Humanity staff as well as the mayor. After our orientation we were taken to 2 places where the devastating floods and mudslides of November 8 did an incredible amount of damage. Hundreds of lives were lost, hundres of homes were washed away and many people still have not been found. We were all speechless at the magnitude of the damage. One local resident was able to describe much of the disaster through our translator Johnny. After a quick stop at the grocery (store complete with armed guards) we returned to the hotel for dinner. Johnny then took us for a walk through town before returning to our hotel for the 9 pm curfew.

Jane

November 23rd 2009

Good evening folks..
Today was day one of our build. The team was up nice and early for breakfast before heading out to three seperate job sites. We divided the team into three and created three great little work groups that came together to show how great a team weve brought to El Salvador. Each site was pretty much at the same stage, starting from the ground up which meant alot of trenches to be dug.
The sun here is incredible..way hotter than we could imagine. They are saying the rest of the week should be the same.
Our Habitat host told us that they were hoping that we would have each of the three houses built up to window height by the time we leave..should be good to see if we can pull it off. We were told the deadline for these homes is Dec 5 when the keys are turned over..
We´ll keep you posted on the progress.
See you soon

Paulie

Day November 21

All team members arrived on time. The pick-ups went smooth as all flights were on time. The last person to come in was Sasha Gupta at 9:30. Everyone is excited about leaving on Sunday to the build location in San Vincente. People have been very friendly but Tony's Spanish is weak at best.