Habitat para la Humanidad

The Man With No Surname's certificate.

On Saturday I joined Asuncion Christian Academy’s teachers and students on a one-day mission trip.  It cost only about £10 for the bus trip, the mid-day meal, and the t-shirt all volunteers for Habitat for Humanity get.  I don’t remember where it was, only the distance and general direction (east of Asuncion about 70km).  I think it was off Route 2 somewhere, so Mbokajaty del Yhaguy, or Itacurubi de la Cordillera (I might be way off).

There were about 20 of us scheduled to depart the Academy at 6:00am.  I arrived in English time (early) at 5:45am having got up at 5am and walked the almost empty darkness from HQ, and found 2 others, actually Paraguayan students I had gotten to know a bit this past week.  We jested about the differences in hot climate and cold climate cultures, and pondered why it was actually the American should-be-on-time teachers who were the ones holding up the parade whilst the locals had set a stirling example of precision time-keeping.

So we left at 6:30, 20 of us crammed into 3 cars, and we made our way to Habitat HQ where the bus would start, where the other 10 or so would be waiting (we waited for them in the end).  There we got free t-shirts and I realise now how I often start these blog posts with details which I then repeat to no effect.

And so to continue as I started: Our day was to be spent in a rural town [see above for location possibilities], where we would assist the building of houses for those in huts not adequate for the families they contained.  It’s a good organisation as they seem to help out with families who are also prepared to muck in and build alongside the volunteers and architects.  We split into 4 groups from the bus stop and went in different directions to nearby settlements set amongst the rolling hills and thicker-than-usual woodland, 7 or 8 of us all hanging over the edges of 4x4s which trundled jerkily over insanely bumpy country roads (one which had 2 tyre tracks, only one track was about 1ft lower than the other) which provided good filming moments.  I had gone along to record some of the mission work students and teachers from ACA do.  Realistically I’d only use about 15-20 seconds of the work in any ACA film as it would be tangent material, which meant it would be far and away the lowest filming production day, but I had also gone along for the craic as the ACA teachers and students are rare fun (and one of them is dating a Northern Irish teacher from another Christian school in Asuncion who came along -who incidentally passed my N.I. test by rendering the phrase How now brown cow as Hoy noy broyn coy).

The house-building tasks included the digging of trenches, shifting of piles of 15kg rocks, sanding, chiseling, and digging deep holes for sceptic tanks.  As we were out in the sticks the people spoke more Guarani the Spanish, found pale-skinned northerners comical, and the children found fun in climbing trees rather than making their video game characters climb trees, so I got a bit of footage of tree-climbing as well as of a little girl of maybe 3 who had a small, wooden, reclining chair who set it out and sat in it examining the workers for about 30 minutes like an old lady as they built the foundations of her new home.  One family had their wooden beds set out under a large tree, perhaps for siesta time, or maybe they spent all night under it.

We had a rollicking time of adventure and hard work, and drove through a thick cloud of smoke on the way back as a large field was on fire.

I’d post lots of pictures of the tiring yet fun day, only I had to leave all my equipment at the school rather than walk the mile home with it.

Electricity pole/tree (one in good shape)

Also, as I am interested, oddly enough, in electricity pylons etc, I note something great about the sticks of Paraguay: a few years ago the government passed a bill (or something) that stated all Paraguayans should have at least 1 electric light in their house, and being away from a major city like Asuncion, or a major (yet quiet) bus route town like San Francisco, I got to see what the rapidly-produced, spangly electricity pylons/poles/etc were like to the more rural folk.  It seemed that besides some far-spaced, sturdy cement poles, the in-between lesser creations were wooden poles similar to what we have in the UK for telephone wires.  Well, similar in that they are are made of tree trunks.  It seemed that no discrimination had been factored in to the choosing of suitable tree trunks, and none, clearly, had to meet a suitable thickness or hight standard.  So what was holding up the cables were often rather spindly, unhappy, twisted, leaning, broken, split, tooth-pick-sized trunks shorn of their feeble branches and left with their grey bark.  As creosote had clearly been deemed surplus to requirements, 100% of the poles were left to face the elements without their suitable sunscreen to protect them, thus they largely looked rotten and as dry as driftwood.  Most looked like a good kick could fell them, and often it was the cables holding the trunks up, braced by the 1 in every 5 cement poles.  It was totally brilliant and has given me a rare opportunity to share in my random interest.


Additionally, here's 2 pictures of the SIM dogs: