Becoming Global Citizens: Three Teachers' Journey: August 2016

We are now well past our halfway point of our project and visit to Nicaragua. We've seen a lot of amazing things and have met a lot of really neat people who we've learned a lot from. The Hernandez family is almost ready to start enjoying their new house, and we can comfortably say that we have set what seemed to be a huge, nearly impossible goal, and will reach it by the end of the week.

At the beginning


Halfway Finished!

Lionel, our regular builder has been so patient with our broken Spanish, and will do anything to ensure that we are comfortable doing whatever needs to be done. It's quite amazing to see how people have to communicate with one another on a project like this, and really gives us a new appreciation for the many new Canadians that have been learning English back home. It is a whole new level of frustration and tests of patience, but is so rewarding when we can look at our project and see the progress that we have made together.
We are doing our best to ensure that Canadians will be seen as a hard-working people in Nicaragua, and if the exhaustion we feel at the end of the day, or the insane sweats we are working up is any indication of hard work, then I think we are doing just that.

In progress

When we had first decided on the home build for our major project in Nicaragua, we weren't exactly sure what to expect. All three of us have done home renovations, and DIY projects, but building a house was a little out of our comfort zones. When we were telling others about our plans, their first reaction was usually "Do you have any idea how to build a house?". The answer was always a definite "No.".
What is really neat about La Esparenza's projects is that we are teamed up with very capable locals who are hired for the project. We are under constant supervision, and from day one, we were very flexible as to what we were willing to do to help Lionel and Mario out.
To date, our jobs have been:

Digging trenches around the perimeter of the house to allow posts to be placed and bricks to be laid
Painting oil on all surfaces of wood to prevent rot (this took forever)
Mixing cement
Separating rocks from sand for cement
Bricklaying
Nailing anchors to posts to allow movement
Hauling cinder blocks and other materials
Attaching frames
Disassembling preexisting home structures

#teamwork

This is by no means easy work. At the end of the day we are absolutely exhausted, and it is a great feeling.

Right now, the three of us are sitting around in our living room, drinking some cafe after our third working day in Nicaragua. We are all pretty tired and a little sore, but have had some pretty great days!

First of all, meet Jerry!

Jerry is our Ayudante from La Esperanza. He meets us every morning to take us to the build site, and spends the day with us. He knows a decent amount of english and is therefore a very valuable friend to have. This is especially handy when no one else at the build site speaks English! Jerry is basically an intern; he works in the community, helping with the volunteers for 6 hours each day and attends university all day on Sundays. He is taking administration. It has been great having Jerry around to help us with the build, acting as our security guard, and providing us with entertainment when the sun gets too hot for us to smile on our own.

Now for the build.

To begin each work day, Jerry meets us at our house and walks with us to the build site. Its about a 40 minute walk. The first day we had a late start due to the inevitable miscommunication that comes with not speaking the language of the citizens here. Even though our work day was by far our shortest work day, it was probably the most painful one. The sun was shining, it was hot and humid, and these 3 chicas were digging 80 inch holes into the hardest soil/clay we had ever encountered. To do this, we used 6 foot metal rods that had a wedge on the end to loosen up the soil, then, one of us would use a shovel to clear the loosened up dirt.
Sounds easy right?
It was labor intensive work in the 35 degree sun, and we were very happy when lunch time came!

We are also fortunate enough to have two professional builders working with us. They are fantastic. They do not speak any english, but have been very patient with us! We like to think we have done a fairly good job of communicating through broken spanish and hand gestures
(and Jerry. Actually, mostly Jerry.)

In the first three mornings, we have accomplished more than we initially thought we would!

We have:
*dug all of the holes for the posts and painted the posts with motor oil (this is to prevent deterioration)
*Taken down about 40% of the previous home
*dug trenches along 75% of the perimeter (the brick for the new house will go into the ground to make it sturdier)
*The roof beams have been placed

As we were leaving today, Lionel (one of our builders) asked us if we were ready for cement work and cinder blocks tomorrow. Truthfully, the answer is likely no, but we're up for it!

Here are some photos from today and our progress!

The back of the Hernandez house after tearing down one wall and digging trenches around the perimeter

Christa poses and catches her breath

Karen loosening up the dirt in the trenches

The posts are placed!

More trenches. There was a lot of digging trenches.

How we left casa de Hernandez today

Elora hard at work

Lunch Time!

Anna is a local woman who has a store out of her house and has been working with La Esperenza for the last 5 years. She offers her home to volunteers to come and enjoy some local cooking for lunch for a very small fee. Her home is a 10-15 minute walk from our build site and is very convenient for a nice break from the sun between building and school time.

Time to hang out with some kids!

The first two days we headed home after lunch. With the language barriers there was a bit of confusion about where we were going. Today, since the learning centre was closed, we headed to one of the schools to hang out with some kids. We met with two men and a woman from England who are living right at the school with 11 of their female students who were volunteering with World Expedition. It was great to converse with others in similar professions having a very different experience volunteering in Nicaragua.
Justo, another ayudante, met us and paired us up with a student each to practice some really basic english with. The kids were really excited to have all the extra adults around, and loved taking photos with us and playing games or colouring.

Tomorrow, we are going back to the school and doing a salsa lesson with the kids! We are very excited for it!

Here are some photos from today at the school!