Dan Coleman

Today we had a new experience. Periodically Habitat will officially dedicate a group of houses, and it was our luck to be here when this took place. Fifteen houses were dedicated at about 4 PM today, all of which are located in the area where we are now building Habitat homes, including the Ramirez home that we are finishing up. Attending were all 15 members of our brigade, the director of the Habitat Argentina and other local and national Habitat staff, the Mayor of Recreo and of course the 15 beneficiary families. There were the usual speeches, mostly short, and the various Habitat brigades that had worked on these houses were thanked. While we had probably done much less on these 15 houses than previous brigades we just happened to be there so we received many acolades. Frank was our designated speaker for the group and he made some appropriate remarks in Spanish, as is his wont, doing a great job. I was asked to come forward to receive a present on behalf of the brigade, a locally made basket with some food goodies including some salami, which we will eat tomorrow night before going to dinner. Afterwards we kind of mingeled around, while munching on a local favorite, torta frita, which is a fried bread dough. For my fellow Georgians, it is like corn bread but made of flour and then deep fried. The neighborhood ladies had made it over an open fire in the front yard of the Ramirez home just an hour or so before the event. I believe everyone in the brigade felt honored to have attended this event.

I mentioned earlier in this blog that we would eat the salami the next evening. Since the first evening in Buenos Aries, we have been getting together before dinner to chat and snack and, of course, enjoy some Argentinean wine, that is, most of us. It seems like someone or two of us will buy some wine, perhaps some cheese and crackers, maybe some salami, and we will meet in the hotel room where breakfast is served, usually between 6:30 and 7PM. It is not really planned or organized, but it sort of happens. People just wander in as they will, and sometime around 8 usually, the wine will have been drunk, the food consumed and our stomachs will tell us it is time to eat. So off we go to dinner, always at a different restaurant.

We might not do this tonight, simply because we were late leaving the build site due to the event I just described, but also because we are going to our going away to dinner in less than an hour. I will tell you about this tomorrow night.

It is Tuesday today and most of us continued preparing the foundation for a new house. We discovered yesterday that the recipient will be a young mother named Edith.

We have been working along with her for the last two days; shoveling, leveling and tamping. I have been very impressed that she has politely, but firmly, made her wishes for her new house known to the architect in charge. For example, she supplements her income by growing flowers for sale and she asked that her house be moved 10 feet closer to the street so that she would have a larger garden. She told me about her plans for a porch, a second door and her front entrance, and I was struck by her sense of hope.

Her house will take about one month to construct using the 3 ft. by 3 ft. concrete panels Paco mentioned in an earlier ´blog´. The house will be 400 sq. ft. with 2 bedrooms. Each bedroom will be 10 ft. by 10 ft. and there will be a small bathroom with a shower.

The design of the house allows for easy future expansion for another bedroom. In addition, I particularly liked the location of the doors and the windows because they will allow refreshing breezes to flow through every room.

The house will cost $8,000 US to build and Iris will have a 15 year mortgage at 0% interest, which will require monthly payments of $50 US.

After work today we had a tour of other Habitat houses in Recreo and were shown former construction techniques using hollow red clay blocks, referred to as “bricks". Habitat started using the concrete panels because the labour costs are about one third of the labour costs of the brick houses. The local affiliate built a house as a demonstration project for people to view and they currently use it as an office.

By the end of today, four concrete panels had been bolted into a precast column, forming the first corner of Iris´s house. The house she dreams about is becoming a reality. I can´t wait for tomorrow!

Pedro (or Peter, as I am called back home)

After skipping a couple of days, I (Dan) am back with an update since Friday. Yesterday marked the half way point. No real problems, no accidents, no sickness. Just a few blisters and scrapes, and some sore backs (Frank´s particularly), thats all. May this week be the same.

Friday night we went with our foreman Mariano and his wife Mecha to a restaurant along the river bank. Naturally most of us had local freshwater fish, one called a boga and another that no one could really pronounce but sounded like ¨suburu¨; anyway that is the name we gave it. Both were very good, and we all felt healthier after having eaten too much red meat the first few days. We are very fortunate in having Mariano to supervise our work day. He has a great sense of humor and is always very concerned about our health and security. He makes sure that we have plenty of water to drink, that we put on sun screen lavishly and that we take back to the hotel just what we brought with us to the site.

Saturday was a day off and we took a trip to the estancia (ranch) Las Mercedes, about a 2 hour plus trip from Santa Fe. This is a 9,000 plus hectare (over 20,000 acres) working farm - farm is an understatement - which has about 7,500 head of animals, mostly cattle but also horses, sheep, goats, and probably pigs, although I didn’t see any of the last. Also miles of fields of crops, mostly soybean, but also wheat when the conditions are ripe. The estancia also has vacation cottages and facilities for folks like us who want a day or two off, even though we only spent the day there. After arriving just before noon, we walked around, talked, had a drink, while some of us swam in the ice cold pool water. Then came a lunch featuring, what else?, beef, and the beef came from the ranchs cattle butchered just the previous day and then cooked for us over an oak fire. The lomo (filet) was about the best I have ever eaten, and the chorizo (a New York strip) was almost as good. Needless to say, we overate. But some of us, 9 exactly (but not me) were given a way of working off the pounds we had just put on. So on to the horses, not to eat, but to ride. Those 9 were beyond happiness when they dismounted after about an hour. You had to see it to believe it.

The next day, Sunday, was a day of rest for all of us, but not a day without an adventure. And the adventure was an afternoon jaunt to a local soccer match between one of the two professional local teams and a bitter rival. 12 of us went, and the local team won, so we and the whole town were real happy.

I think this is enough. Maybe I can get someone else on the team to write about today and maybe tomorrow.

No problems on Friday the 13th. actually everything is going smoothly…again the group split up into groups… one finishing Hector Ramirez house the other breaking ground for the foundation of the eventual 40 new homes they have planned. Two of the recipients were among the workers digging…even the neighborhood kids arrived to show us city folk how to dig…it became a contest to see who could move the most dirt.

On the Ramirez house we are down to painting and will soon begin finishing work on the inside… the field for the new homes has been enclosed in a fence…this is mainly to keep out the curious and the petty thieves… we have been warned that any equipment left on site will most lilkely not be there tomorrow.

The fence material is a sort of chainlink wire but a very low grade of wire…when we undid the roll it took many of us to untangle the mess… however our learning curve is steep and we got the hang of it… it aín’t pretty but maybe it will keep the honest people honest.

We will get to see the beginning of the building process which is very different from any houses being built in the USA and Canada… the cement slabs are being delivered on Saturday ( each one weighs 100 kilos!) after excavating the foot print of the house we will put in concrete pilings then level the whole thing with the pre formed and pour the cement slab for the floor…then build the walls from these 100 kilo monsters…lifting should be a “challenge” as there is no mechanical equipment on site and will have to be lifted by hand

Tomorrow we are going out for a ride in the country for some R & R, then maybe some beach time along the river…it will be good to relax because we have been going full out every day…a couple of machines would be nice but will not happen…hand labor is still cheaper than capital investment especially when it is volunteers.

KEEP TUNED, Paco Kelly

It was hot and sunny at the worksite today. The temperature was about 30 degrees Centigrade and there was little wind. Fortunately there was lots of water!

My name is Peter and I am from Vancouver, Canada: the rainy west coast. Our summers are short, mild, and often wet, particularly this year. So I am loving this second chance for summer weather!

We divided into two groups today. One group started painting the Ramirez house, which is nearing completion. The rest of us completed the fence and started clearing the foundation for a new house. Hot, hard work with plenty of rest breaks during which we got to practice our Spanish.

I discovered a trick today for helping me to understand conversations. I was talking to the architect in charge of the project and I realized that if I asked a question every few seconds my comprehension improved dramatically because that ensured I knew what we were talking about. Fortunately for me he was patient and didn´t mind repeating himself several times if required.

Another experience today was digging in the most beautiful soil I have every seen in my life! I grew up on a farm and have dug lots of post holes, but never have I seen soil like this. Recreo is on the northern edge of the Pampas and the soil is black and stone free. The landscape is very flat: a cross between the Regina Plains and farmland around Edmonton, Alberta.

I am very impressed with the involvement of the community in the project and congratulate the local Habitat para la Humanidad affiliate.

Hasta luego.