All about the people

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After a short delay, our water arrived this morning. With all the space cleared, brick making began in earnest. Again, I felt efficient. I made 30 bricks over the course of the morning. A mason's helper make 3 lempira per brick. At the current exchange rate, I would have earned roughly $4.50 for half a days work. I am not as efficient as one of the standard helpers, but you can see how little the average earnings are.


From the blog I wrote for the Habitat Wake website. “Yesterday I hit the wall. All the hard physical labor had finally taken its toll on my body. After a good night’s sleep, I felt revived. However, I was cautious about overdoing it. It turned out to be a blessing. Although I worked hard making adobe bricks all morning, I focused on people for the afternoon.
The village children have been flocking to the work site every afternoon after school. They range in age from 1 to 14. Many of us have taken a break from our work to engage the children. However, today was different. They were no longer tentative. We were greeted with big smiles, hugs and the warmth you feel from friends. As we participated together working on crafts or playing soccer, the language barriers diminished.
During the week a local Habitat family was kind enough to share their bathroom with our team. Today, in gratitude, we planned a photo session for the whole family. What a great experience for all of us. Not only were they thrilled to have their portraits taken, but we had the opportunity to use our basic Spanish language skills to communicate to each other and share a little bit about our lives. Marisa and her family now feel like part of my extended Honduran family.”

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