Working at Miguel's House, Day 1 of Work

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Saturday, July 24th was our first official day of work. At Friday night's supper, Sr. Gloria explained the work projects available to participate in and the jobs at each site. She invited us to choose daily where we wanted to go and what we wanted to do. There was a sign-up sheet posted each evening for each site. Private transportation would take us to each location (vans with Fiat-employed drivers).

Day 1 I signed up to work with three others at Miguel's house. Miguel is a Fiat employee who had lost his home in a mud slide. Fiat was helping him rebuild. Miguel lived with his mother and father and four children. The house being built for them was going to be really nice in comparison to many in his neighborhood (corrugated tin roof and walls).
In his case the house was going to be a three room structure, cinder-blocked walls, glass-slat windows, a porch, a bathroom with running water and electricity. My understanding is that most cooking is done outside in El Salvador so the remaining rooms appeared to be a living room/space and two bedrooms. Most of the family's worldy possessions were draped around the space surrounding the house...clothes, furniture etc. Roosters and chickens, and several rabbits walked freely around this space as well. A tent-like structure stood in the corner of the yard and that's where Miguel's mother was cooking and his father was watching us from. I had to assume that that was were everyone was living until the house was built. Both parents appeared elderly, but I couldn't guess their age....life is hard there so for all I know they may have been younger than they looked.

Nkechi, Michael and Taylor and I were the first of our group to work with Miguel. Michael and Taylor were from the St. Anne's group, they were college aged. Nkechi was the motherof the three daughters My guess is that she was in her 40's. Nkechi is a pharmacist, originally from Nigeria. Her mom still lives there and her entire family seems to be well traveled.

As Michael and Taylor stood on a home-made ladder and painted (the rungs of which hurt your feet) , Nkechi and I grouted the interior tile floors. Neither of us ever grouted before but we quickly learned. the grout was prepared for us by either Miguel or the other workman that seemed to be helping. Every time a bucket of grout appeared the consistency was different. We remarked that this grouting experience was a lot different than how it would occur in a US construction project. Our grouting lesson was quick...we just did what was demonstrated.

It was hot, and the sweat poured off of us in streams. All of us took breaks, loading up on water. There was only one chair in the covered porch space to rest in so we took turns. Many children showed up to watch, help and hang out. I asked all of them if Miguel was their "Papa". "No, they answered, amigo" At one point a beautiful little girl showed up and took the trowel from my hand and let me know she wanted to grout. I sat back and watched. Then someone called her name and she was gone.

None of us spoke Spanish and Miguel spoke minimal English, but somehow we were able to communicate with each other. At one point Miquel brought over tiny baby chicks that they had in a container back in the yard. None of us had been around new baby chicks in a while.

Miguel worked on building a metal front door and his co-worker worked on electrical outlets. At lunchtime we all stood to eat our PB&J sandwiches and drink our water. Hucksters came through the back roads (unpaved) as did women carrying jugs and baskets on their heads. Migue'ls mom went to the well twice while we were there and carried a large water filled jug back...she was such a tiny woman we wondered how she pulled this off. At day's end Miguel drove us back to the volunteer house and the cold shower waiting for us was a luxury to jump into.

We experienced the first of our "typical evenings": return from the site, shower, rest, dinner, time off, gather for reflection in the chapel, then free time before lights out. Our nightly reflections gave this trip a "sort of retreat-like quality". Fr. Tom Riley was part of the St. Ann's group from Marietta, Ga. Several evenings he said Mass and the reflection occurred during homily time. Other nights it occurred before bed. It gave us the opportunity to reflect as a group on what we did and what it meant to us. Positive and Negative emotions were allowed! Typically, it began with some thought-provoking reading that would lead us into round-robin comments from the group. You could pass if you didn't want to talk. Most people did.

Tonight's reflection brought out points about what extreme poverty really looks like, how poor people have to find (and can find) joy in simple things. Our hand-out introduced the idea that we have to be aware of the poor in order to love them. We were reminded that it is not a matter of not feeling the poo pain...it's often a matter of not seeing them...not because we can't see but because we don't look...our eyes, ears and hearts are somewhere else. Basically the questions we were asked to respond to were:
What excited me today.
What did I experience that was new?
What frustrated me?
Made me feel anxious, joyful, surprised?
What did I learn?
What was a powerful moment in the day?

Once the nightly reflection occurred (about 45 minutes) we were free to disband. It was great seeing "the kids" go out front together, drink sodas and play board games...typically this the age group that would look to go clubbing...which of course was a "no-no". Once inside the gates at night we were not to leave the premises. It was not safe.
There was a refrigerator stocked with cold soda's (for 50 cents a piece, honor system) and that was the nightly beverage. Although the engineers were doing more going and coming (and stopping for occasional beers, even bringing a few back for some of us to enjoy, no drinking of any alcohol was visible. Many of us fantasized about cold beers on the work site, because nothing seemed more thirst-quenching when you were so hot...but soda sufficed. In the soda refrig were peach and pear nectars that seemed to be a favorite but high in calories. More on the caloric intake next entry!!! Most of us gained weight, we didn't loose it.

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