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Published: July 22nd 2008
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Bringing the door
Shown off by Jack, Ella and Beth Round of applause please! As of Thursday 17th July 2008, the Family Mixto Paxel now have a brand new home to live in! We finished off the house by adding the door, window, roof and painting the outside and inside, having finished off the floor the previous day.
After leaving the office in the morning, our brilliant planning once again ensured that we had the door hanging off the back of the truck. On the way to Alotenango, and the site, we did get some excellent views of Fuego erupting but then swiftly put our cameras away as we passed through a very heavily militarised roadblock - not sure waht they were searching for, pineapple/drug smugglers maybe, but I like my camera too much to have it confiscated! Anyway, we arrived and began to mix up the paint: Red for the outside and Yellow for indoors. The paint comes in a powder so we had to mix about 4 bags of each in order to have enough. This was then mixed further with a calcium thickner and sugar was added to stop it washing off in the rain - looked quite appetising actually!
Whilst we, the volunteers were painting, the builders,
Buzz being cool
whilst pulling his "University of Texas" pose Cuchi and Izaeus were puting the roof in place. Most of it was corregatted iron sheet, though one is clear plastic to allow light from overhead to enter - apparantly many families aren´t used to so much light and cover theirs up after a while. As if! Whilst painting, we worked out a decent systen with me doing the tallest parts inside (had a ladder - I´m not that tall!), Jack doing the middle whilst our complimentary Texan, Pat "Buzz", took the lowest layers, with Beth and Ella taking the outside. Thoughtfully they left the highest areas blank for me to finish. How nice!
Once the roof was done, we stopped for lunch and the family had cooked us an astonishing meal of a tomato soup with chiken and potatos along with fresh rice and tortillas hot from the charcoal fire. Absolutely gorgeous!!! One of the best meals I´ve had out here. The family ate outside however, whilst we had the first meal in the house.
After lunch, Izaeus worked on fitting the window in place, though since our concrete production was so good, we had put slightly too much on the bricks around it which had to be chisled
off. With the window more or less fitted, we glued the panes in place and we were almost finished!
Apart from the door. Although we had the door in place adn it opened, it was getting it to close that posed a dilemma. Cuchi said to me afterwards that clearly it was a bad door, not the workers! As hard as we tried, it wouldn´t close well enough - part of the catch was bent so, in an attempt to fix it, we pulled out that most trusty of builders tools, "
el mateo" - the hammer! After beating the hell out of the catch, it still wouldn´t close properly, so we had to up the arsenal. Next came the circular saw, whose name I can´t remember in Spanish. Cuchi donned Buzz´s sunglasses, a fair immitation of Blade, I thought, and went to the catch. Izaeus, as well as Tomas one of the drivers who´d arrived, did the best he could to distract Cuchi by the usual methods when he paused i.e trying to push him out of the door and locking him out (another favourite is standing behind someone kneeling down and bringing your foot up between their legs until
The route through
This was the path that we had to travel to move wheelbarrows of stones and on the first day, buckets of sand. Not show: The ridiculous steepness and the minefield of small dogs, chickens and ducks! they realise)! At long last, the door was sorted (more or less) and we then had to wait for Oscar, the head of the project, and Joe, the founder of the charity, to arrive and hand the key over.
When they did, Izaeus attached a plaque to the wall, saying who the house was for, who donated the money for it and the month and year that it was finished. We then went inside with the family where Oscar said a few words to them, saying how this is their home and they can do with it as they wish; it is a gift - Buzz, who spent a number of years as a Spanish Teacher, translated though I understood a fair bit. The mother spoke, saying how she never dreamed that they would have something such as this for no cost - the houses are completely free; the family just needs to get in contact with the charity who assess their circumstances and place them on a waiting list.
Once the keys were handed over, we took some photos and then the family invited us to have a drink and they brought out a bottle of 7up - believe
More of the route through
Finally turning off right to go down some steps to the concrete pit. me that tasted good! - and 3 rolls of bread for each of us. To say that they don´t have much, they still gave us these things with no second thought. Oscar told me later that when the goes back to see the houses in a few months, many of them plant flowers around the entrance - they really take pride in their homes, and why should´t they? Before we left, the Mother of the family said that if ever we came back, their door would always be open for us.
Although we change sites a lot, I managed to be on this one for 4 out of the 7 days and so really saw the whole thing take shape. You feel exhausted by the end, but at the same time, something inside you outweighs the tiredness and you feel really good about what you're doing.
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