I went to lunch last Tuesday, with my 22 year old twin sons. While I stepped away to the restroom, the check arrived, and to my pleasant surprise, my son Micah picked up the check! My take-away on this is that things do change in significant ways over time. I’ve bought Micah many meals over the years and to have him pay for one signifies a major change that is a generation long in coming.
Last week, Habitat Wake staff member Pam Forsythe visited our friends in Honduras for a Global Build.
Sorry for the lack of blogging lately. We’ve been busy, both on our construction sites and in putting together a plan of action for our Fiscal Year 2012, which begins in July.
Yesterday, 12 area CEOs came together and began framing Shanita’s house at a site in Cary. I was privileged to be able to spend the day working with them. I told the CEOs that they didn’t have to make any decisions on site, but to “just do as you are told and we’ll all be OK.” I introduced our construction manager Brad McHugh, as chairman of the board for the day and Ed Rogers our site superintendent, as chair of the audit committee.
At Thursday’s annual Habitat Blueprint Breakfast at the North Raleigh Hilton, our guest speaker, Frank Anton, a leading expert on the home building industry asked attendees how many believed that there is currently a housing shortage. Of the nearly 600 attendees, 2 raised their hands. Frank proclaimed that the others were wrong. He went on to speak that despite the current general oversupply of housing in the U.S.
Wow! What a whirlwind week in Honduras. Friday was full of festivities on our worksites in El Rosario. We spent the morning laying several more courses of block on the homes we started. At noon, the nearby school, Escuela de Juan Pablo II, fixed a bountiful lunch for us and entertained us with their singers, dancers, and school band. We had a dedication ceremony to celebrate the week and then we joined the local community and our skilled masons in a game of futbol. I think I'll stick to basketball, thank you.
Today on our worksite we began to see block walls going up and much quicker than I thought. The local masons even let us lay most of the block. I wasn't expecting that. We learned today that the husband of our homeowner family would be able to attend our end of the week celebration tomorrow (Friday). He works in San Pedro Sula, the largest nearby city, in a chicken processing facility and is often away from home for two weeks at a time. Enma is a stay-at-home mom to their 3 year old daughter. We visited another orphanage this afternoon that houses young girls ages 4-18.
Our work continues on the home in the El Rosario village outside Santa Rosa here in Honduras. Enma and her daughter have been active participants. Her daughter has joined some of our team in games and coloring book activities and Enma has joined in helping to build. Most in the village work at daily subsistence picking up odd jobs here and there. There is not much education after age 12. We visited a school today that is a private non-profit that raises funds by selling loofa products grown and fabricated in the village. Those over 12 can attend this school on the weekends for free.
Our work continued today on Enma's house. Still doing the same tasks. Hoping that the cinderblocks will start getting laid tomorrow. For us, I think that means carrying them to the local masons to lay them. The work is extremely labor intensive--all manual, nothing at all mechanized.
Habitat for Humanity Honduras started work in 1989 and has completed over 10,000 houses in the country in that time! Very impressive for a country slightly smaller in population than North Carolina!! 53% of the Honduran population lives below the poverty level with an estimated unemployment rate of 28%. It is estimated that the deficit of adequate housing is 1,150,000 units among a population of 8 million. So housing is a huge issue here AND the opportunity to make a difference in a family's life is huge. A Habitat house only costs $4,500.