Un Techo Para Chile

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***NOTE 6 mayo 2008 19:05***

Thank you, James St. James, for correcting me about the story behind Cinco de Mayo. I'll try not to butcher foreign holidays/customs/events in the future. (It'll probably still happen, but that's why I said try.)

***END NOTE***

Let me start by saying Happy Cinco de Mayo to all my friends in the United States. I'm sure you're appreciating Mexican Independence the best way you know how. Keep it kosher, if at all possible.

Secondly, I want to congratulate Diane, Jon, and Gianna, on the successful adoption of their new son/brother, Jonathan. I wish you all the best! Furthermore, thank you for participating in a genuinely important and rewarding cause. Adoption is one of the most beautiful things a parent can do. Congratulations on your new bigger family!

Okay, now moving on to the part that pertains to travel. (My travel, anyway.) This weekend, I participated in a project known as Un Techo Para Chile which resembles Habitat for Humanity, I think. Don't know much about Habitat, so that's a guess. But the general layout is a group of volunteers that come together to help build a mediasaguas, which is a small wooden building that will thereafter serve as a home for a family that presently doesn't have one. Smaller than my matchbox apartment in Iowa? Yes. An improvement from the living conditions of their previous home? YES. The family that my group built a house for had to pay rent to live in an identical structure. With the one we built, they don't have to waste their minimal income on rent, and can probably now afford a few more luxuries...aka buying a school uniform for either of the boys in the family, ages 9 and 15.

Because of Dia de Trabajo (Labor Day) there was nothing open on Thursday, May 1st. So a bunch of college-aged kids got together to do volunteer work. After grabbing a cab across town to the meeting place, we ended up getting rides to our rest spot, a whopping three blocks from my house. (The irony.) That night we met our groups. The gringas were separated, obviously, or we'd all be clueless English-speakers trying to level a house without any knowledge of construction. I worked with Cachorro, Confi, Gime, Diego, and Geraldo, the first two being the group leaders. We built a mediasaguas for Jessica, her two sons, and...I don't know what role the teenage girl had-niece? Son's girlfriend? Mm, not sure. But for them. Very nice people, welcoming and authentically appreciative. The elder son was a major contributor to the timely completion of our mediasaguas. While most of us wandered around trying to look/be productive, he was up on the beams with the firme rugby player completing the roof in the cold rain. (Given my earlier stumbles, which were numerous, I was not allowed up on the roof.)

This weekend has left me feeling self-fulfilled and inspired, but restless. Despite the mildly sore, still slightly dirty hands (I've scrubbed, I promise) and the aching back I suffered from Saturday and Sunday, I can't think of anything I could have done that would have made me happier. Of course, getting two massages from two men simultaneously didn't hurt. Definitely helped with the backache I'd been nursing. (Head massage: Simon. Back: Cachorro.) And sleeping? Didn't happen much. We were staying in an unoccupied classroom at a nearby school, about thirty of us sleeping in one room with a small oven to heat us all overnight. Remember that it's late fall here, if you would be so kind. The first night, I couldn't sleep for the cold, despite my fleece pants, socks, sweater, scarf, hat, and double sleeping bag. The second night, we switched things around to promote warmth. Two guys brought mattresses from their houses, which we put out on the floor and squished into. Two guys, three gringas. It was PG, I promise, but so much fun, kind of like a co-ed sleepover for big kids. The only problems with the second night were:

1] I couldn't sleep for the heat. I'd overcompensated the need for warmth with more layers, and since we were like sardines
we were packed so tightly, I couldn't so much as sit up in my sleeping bag to take off my second pair of socks or roll up my pants.
Both of the people on either side of me were sleeping on the sides of it.
2] People snore....a lot. Especially one particular group leader who happened to be sleeping next to me on his mattress. He was
not the only participant in Friday night's choir, I promise, but probably the soloist with an ego who wants to sing louder than
everyone else all the time. I was awake at one point for what I estimate was about 90 minutes, suffering the heat and unable to
sleep for the concert.

The final night? I was at the point where I would have slept under ten feet of ice or inside Chaiten as it erupted. I stayed up talking for a bit. And then I slept! Thank goodness for that.

The people that I met and spent time with this weekend were some of the most interesting, easy-going people I've ever come across. Yeah for Chileans! So many college students genuinely interested in helping these families-it was spectacular. If I end up coming back here after graduation, which is something I've honestly considered, a large part of that decision will be based on these people, the new friends I've made, and the opportunity to work on more projects for Un Techo Para Chile. And if I stay in the States? Well, there's always Habitat for Humanity. I'll settle if I must. 😉

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Comments

[james st. james]

a roof for chile
i've really enjoyed reading your blogs about your time in chile. i think its great you've been able to do some social project too. just an fyi, mexico's independence day is september 16, 1810, just two days before chile's. 5 de mayo isn't mexico's independence day, it's the day of the battle of puebla, where mexico defeated the invading french (¿have they ever won a war?) forces of napoleon III, who sought to annex mexico into the french empire. it's a bigger deal in the US than mexico for some reason. ¡saludos!