Building Houses in Santo Domingo

My first full week here in Ecuador I was able to join an international ¨Brigade¨of volunteers building houses with Habitat for Humanity Ecuador in a town called ¨Santo Domingo de Los Colorados.¨ The town is named after an indigenous group ¨los Colorados¨who where called such by the Spaniards because they color their hair red using a local fruit´s seeds.

Below is a photo of the brigade, one house on which we worked (and almost completed), and the family that is moving in this week! This picture was taken immediately following the completed house's dedication (see the chairs to the left). I am second to last on the far right bottom.

I have lots of photos, and I am working on linking albums to this blog... this is just the beginning!

Santo Domingo is one of seven affilates in Ecuador, and is one of the three most prolific in terms of the number of houses being built. Also interesting, the city of approximately 200 thousand is the fastest growing in all of South America.

14 volunteers arrived last Saturday as a Brigade, a group of volunteers, through a program called ¨Global Village¨which is the manner in which international teams of 4 or more persons are sent all over the world to build at other Habitat for Humanity affiliates (also see my links on the right for more information). Along with a one to two week building experience, the volunteers make a donation to Habitat for Humanity International and the local affiliate and participate in cultural activities. The volunteers also participate in social activities for the Habitat families (those moving into the houses) and the community.


In addition to the global village group (2 Northern Irelanders, 11 United States residents, and 1 Puerto Rican) we were joined by two travelers (1 British and the other from New Zealand) bringing the volunteer group to a total of 16.

Starting my experience here with a week-long build was a great kick-off! We worked on two houses and finished one of them. The families help with the building throughout the entire process- this was a bit different from the US where the families have specific ¨sweat equity¨hours, but they do not necessarily do all their hours on their own house, or for the amount of time a house needs to be built. (to the right is "Reymundo" the owner of the house on which I worked)

I was thrown immediately into the position of a translator because the Brigade only had one Spanish speaker and they put each of us at one of the sites. Usually a Habitat rep, Valeria, leads the Brigades and she speaks both English and Spanish. However, she was in Argentina for a Habitat training. None of the Habitat officials (local, or the national office representative, Hugo) spoke English. So, I have now been a translator on a construction site, and at the doctor´s office (I got pretty sick one day and the next day a volunteer from the other site had a concussion).

Reymundo house was somewhat of a special case as he is employed by Habitat in Santo Domingo as a ¨maestro¨( teacher) for other Habitat builds. That meant that on this build, instead of having a Habitat teacher and the homeowner on site, he was serving as both. Reymundo had been working on his house the year before, and would have been working on it for many months (year+?) to come, had we not been able to pitch in last week. He and four of his children (ages 16, 12ish, 10ish and 8) and one grandchild (age 4 months) are moving into the house this week! They had been living ín a house with a dirt floor and with poor conditions for the children in Reymundo´s parents-in-law´s house. The 16 year old daughter quit school four years ago in order to be the mother figure for the other kids.

I have participated in many week-long builds in the United States, in particular through the ¨Collegiate Challenge¨Program, so this was somewhat similar to those experiences. However, the houses are quite different in that we learned to make cement by hand, lay a cement floor by hand, lay cement bricks, and spackle a bathroom and kitchen (well, I was actually sick during the brick laying). Not included in a Habitat House here are: paint, glass windows, or appliances. The houses do have running water and some electricity. Other differences are that, usually, in order for Habitat to build here in Ecuador (and other Latin American countries), the family has to already own their land. In the US, usually the land is part of the interest-free loan cost.

Because in Santo Domingo there are A LOT of squaters, approximately 20 thousand (10 percent!, out of 200 thousand total residents), none of these families are eligible at this point for a full Habitat House. HOWEVER, and this was pretty exciting, Habitat has started a micro-loan program so that families can improve their dwellings and begin to build credit so that they will likely have a decent place to live before the 20 years it takes to own your land. Within the first three months of the micro-loan program in Santo Domingo, there are already over 46 participating families. Quito is also starting a micro-loan program.

During the last fiscal year, Habitat Ecuador had 13 international brigades and several domestic brigades (primarily from churches). There is also a large High School volunteer project-- all students must have 120 hours of volunteer service in order to graduate here! (Habitat is only one of MANY organizations with which the high school students work; because they usually are all volunteering during one or two weeks as groups, it is too difficult to have work for all the students at once).