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Published: July 25th 2016
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Wanting to be respectful of the village as its mourned the death of one of its members and knowing that we would unlikely return to build on Friday as anticipated, we worked hard to finish everything we could on the two houses. We completed most of the walls, though the builders completed the very top when it became more complicated. Since the top of the walls tended to be peaked, the strings that served as our levels needed to be moved more frequently. As a result we had extra downtime. We used part of that downtime to ask the Habitat staff and village leaders questions.
One thing we learned is that for people's birthday, they sing "Happy Birthday" in English. They do not have any native song or tradition beyond using our simple ones. This topic came up because it was Justin, our youngest team member's birthday. We later celebrated his 17th birthday at a restaurant along Lake Malawi in the evening. His mom, Sondra, brought birthday plates that we used to eat a yummy birthday cake, along with a table topper.
Even though the village was quiet, the kids still wanted to interact with us, though we did
not get out the soccer ball, jump ropes or stickers as we had hoped to before we arrived that day. Sitting in a circle with a group of kids standing around me, I tried to teach them "thumb wars." The language barrier proved too difficult so we adapted the game to where we moved our thumbs three times saying "one, two, three." I then would gently squeeze their thumbs down and say "squish." A few of the older boys figured out how to thumb wrestle so they would end up squeezing my thumb down under their thumbs. For the rest of the kids, they started counting with me and then when I would squeeze their thumb down, we would both yell "squish!" Everyone would break out in smiles and laughter.
A small group of us went for a walk to see a Habitat house nearing completion after it became clear that there was nothing else for us to do on the build site as we accomplished everything at the houses. During the walk learned that in Habitat would built 8 homes this year in Salima and shooting for a total of 16 next year. Salima is one of the
7 regions where Habitat for Humanity Malawi works with a staff of 40-50 people. The house we viewed had its floor lined with all the broken bricks that had been discarded during the wall construction phase. Concrete would be poured over the bricks to create a solid floor. A tin roof had been attached, which meant completion was under a month away.
While disappointed we would not be doing any more building, felt good about the progress we had made on the two houses. While I drank a ton of water and sweated a lot, the work was bearable and rewarding. My arms were a bit sore but in a good way. While I don't consider myself a builder by any stretch of the imagination, I felt that my work improved during the week. More importantly, I felt like I was able to work alongside and with the builders, Nepman and Immanuel. We got some of the local kids to join us in the fun so that the building was a community endeavor and not just something our American group did for two families. While there were some language barriers, by day four we were all able to joke around and have fun as a large group comprised of Americans and Malawians. Great build experience!
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