The Adventure Continues...: When U. of Chicago Hit Guayaquil

Guayaquil is Ecuador´s largest city with over 3 million people (of the total 13.5 million Ecuadorians), and one of the three locations that Habitat for Humanity Ecuador builds.

Danit´s Team

Daniel (new Global Village Coordinator) and I (see below- he is usually happier... but I think this photo is pretty funny!) took a 5 hour bus from Santo Domingo to Guayaquil- leaving Amanda and Lisa´s Global Village group in the morning and meeting with Danit´s University of Chicago Global Village group that night!

The ten University of Chicago students arrived LATE on Saturday night. We didn´t meet the group until after 1am when they finally came out the international arrivals door!

The students had just begun their winter break and would spend 5.5 days building and then spend a few days on the coast.

What a positive energy group! Daniel and I had been a bit worried after some horror-stories about other student group that came to Ecuador to "work with Habitat", who did not create such a good reputation for future groups. We knew right away however that this group would set the record straight about how awesome volunteer university student groups can be. Most of these students had been involved in projects locally with Habitat and other building groups.. .and many had traveled to the US South to help out in areas hit by Hurricane Katrina.

After the late arrival Sat we all had a day to relax in Guayaquil before the work week began. Here are Jayce, Race, Danit and Emerson enjoying the warm Guayaquil weather and the view of the river from "las Peñas" a small "mountain on the Guayaquil coast with lots of shops, restaurants and some museums.

Above are pictured a view from Las Peñas and the "Malecon 2000", which is the renovated boardwalk which was completed in 2000.

Our hotel, the "Rizzo" was located right next to "iguana park" also known as "Parque del Santuario" and by other names. The park is filled with iguanas- on the ground, in the trees, on the statues and crawling the paths. Above, Lee and Emerson hang out with a local boy, (who seemed to live in the park~!), and a large iguana.
U. of Chicago's group of ten worked on two houses in planned municipality neighborhoods for low-income housing. The Habitat houses there cost approximately $4,500 once the future owner acquires land and are the most affordable of any housing being built in these neighborhoods.
Above, Jayce works on sealing the concrete on a new wall. Below is the team from Daniel's site: Jayce, Emerson, Hallie, Lee and Danit.

Here's the team from my site, our maestros and the future owner. From the left, a maestro, the home owner, a assistant maestro, Bernardo (Guayaquil Director for Habitat), Shira, Julia, Neetu, Yana, another assistant maestro and Race.These houses were the standard 6m by 6m by 6m design currently being built by Habitat in Ecuador. Once the family pays off 80 percent of the no-interest loan, they are eligible for some additional floor space and bigger loan.

Here Emerson prepares here mortar palette.

Here Danit and Lee screw around on the work site... don't worry they didn't do TOO much of that:-). They are the president and vice president of their Habitat student organization!
Here they are at work with Jayce, creating the "chains" which create the foundation structure for the house.

Both houses started almost from ground zero, however Daniel's site already had the footings dug. My site however, which was composed of dirt as hard as concrete, was started the day we arrived with us using pick axes and shovels to break through the dirt.

We came along way that week and by Friday and Saturday, the walls where about halfway finished! Here Neetu works on smoothing one of our first walls.

Since U. of Chicago's visit, both John Hopkins University and University of North Carolina have arrived in Ecuador with Global Village teams as well!- I was not able to travel with either of these teams however, as I was with another Global Village teams or out of the country.