Part 3 - The Reason
After lunch, our brigade leader Gisele came over and said we were going to visit one of the families where they were currently living. We had seen some of the thrown-together shelters on the hike over to the site, but now we learned in great detail the situation we were trying to remedy with our service.
This little shack of corrugated iron and wood serves as the home of Dina and her four children. There is one bedroom and a tiny kitchen. Often the kids will sleep outside on their grandma’s porch next door since there’s so little room inside.
The family grows and dries beans to sell and make a little money. Many other families work seasonal jobs such as harvesting oranges in the nearby groves, or whatever work they can find. One of the dads, Carlos, works a night job, gets 1-2 hours of sleep, then heads over to the Habitat site to work on the houses all day. Over the week we picked him up from work a couple times, so he could sleep on the bus instead of having to ride his motorcycle to the site.
You know, it’s one thing to see infomercials on TV late at night about sponsoring a family in need. It’s quite another to visit the family in person, meet them face to face and come to understand how they live. You are very literally walking in another man’s shoes. This is something I wish everyone could experience at least once. Words and pictures simply cannot do it justice. Maybe if everybody could see this with their own eyes, a lot more would be done to help the poor instead of arguing over whether they “deserve it.” Nobody deserves to have to live like this.
Mauricio managed to get the bus repaired and met us back at the site, where we clambered into our seats, exhausted but all the more determined to make the most of this week. Meeting the families really hit home for us - they were the reason we were here.
That night I lay in my hotel room trying to fall asleep, with my little roommate chirping happily in the corner. I began dreaming that I was still digging holes, and felt my muscles spasm, waking me up again. Talk about taking your work home with you. Fortunately one of the neighbors was playing some soft piano music and I eventually drifted off...