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by Dave Bezaire, August, 2006 (Click photos to see full size)
Habitat for Humanity in Livingston relates stories of the people we met and worked with for two weeks in Guatemala. Told here primarily through pictures, they give a glimpse into village life, Habitat for Humanity's work, and our Global Village team.
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Livingston is a small city of 6,000 people on the Caribbean coast of Guatemala
This small village is dominated by fishing and tourism and revolves around it's lovely sea shore.
There is no way to get there by car!
We rode for 6 hours in vans and then 30 more minutes in a boat to reach Livingston.
Guatemala is the northeastern end of Central America.
We flew into the capital, Guatemala City, a bustling hub of 3 million people. Our trip to Livingston was a quick dash. The return two weeks later was more leisurely, including a half-day boat ride on the Rio Dulce, and a day to explore Antigua, the seat of traditional Guatemalan culture.
This woman shows a fish ready for cleaning.
Here are fish drying in the sun.
Both tradition and a decade of economic development efforts have built a thriving fishing industry in Livingston.
Livingston attracts hearty tourists, many of them on extended backpacking trips throughout Guatemala and Central America.
Main street in Livingston is lined with diverse shops like this colorful general store.
The overriding tone in Livingston is "laid-back", a mix of the Garifuna people, the traditional Guatemalan http://www.geocities.com/blancaveliz/GuatCulture.htmMayan and Ladino
cultures, and a generous sprinkling of Asians.
A man and his boat.
Poverty Housing
Many people in Livingston live in terribly poor housing conditions
This typical house, with its thatch roof and mud floors, provides scant protection when 30 inches of rain fall each month during the rainy season. Government corruption, civil war, and natural disasters such as hurricanes and earthquakes have kept the people poor. According to the CIA World Factbook, 75% of Guatemalans live below the poverty level.
We worked with the family that lives in this house. The family was always at risk of being homeless because the house actually belongs to a friend who permits them to live in it out of kindness.
The infrastructure is miserably inadequate. Centrally-supplied water is not adequately purified. Most houses have electricity, but dangerously inadequate wiring. Far too many toilets do not yet connect with the central sewage treatment facility.
Most people cook inside, many over wood fires. Although people do not know the word "asthma", many are afflicted with lung problems from a life of living in smoke-filled houses.
A woman washing clothes on the porch of her home.
Families
We built houses together with two Habitat Homeowner Families
German and Maria
This family is Garifuna.
German lost his arm to an accident on a military training exercise in the 1960s.
They have three children.
We only saw their oldest daughter, Tatiana, 19, a couple times during our stay, but the other two worked with us on and off when they were not in school.
Milton, 16, and team member Katie
Ivan, 11, and team member Heather.
Abuelita (Grandmother) lives with German and Maria and was proud to show-off her cooking.
On a couple of our work days she fixed us fresh mazapn, a fried fruit from palm-like trees that grew on the property.
Carlos and Yosina
This family is Ladino.
They are spreading and compacting the dirt in their soon-to-be bedroom, smiling as they "dance" in the mud, excited that it will soon be solid concrete!
Two of their three children were often on the building site
Luis Carlos, 8, and Itzel, 3, loved to help mom and dad and their friends.
Crisma Fernanda, 10, has been severely handicapped since an illness when she was 8 months old.
Luis Carlos and team member Ruth spent long hours making the steel reinforcing ribs that will protect the house from earthquake damage.
The family is standing together at the nearby house of Carlos' sister.
Here is team member Katie along with a happy Carlos.
Half of our team worked primarily with German & Maria
Team member Dave, seen with German and Maria, was the crew lead on one site.
The other half of the team worked primarily with Carlos & Yosina
Team member Michael, a very long-time Habitat volunteer seen here in a shirt from his leadership of a blitz build in Columbus in 1993, was crew lead on the other site.
A delegation from our team visited one of the first Habitat Homeowner Families in Livingston.
Their HFH home, which was completed about nine months before the arrival of our team, was more than 100 feet above the sea, with a gorgeous view above visible from their front door.
Of course, that means that they carried all the blocks and bags of cement up the stairs at the right and further up a dirt path to reach the site.
Construction
Habitat for Humanity houses in Guatemala are built of concrete blocks with plenty of steel to endure earthquakes
The houses are built on a very solid foundation of steel-reinforced concrete. With no worries of frost, most are quite shallow.
Because Carlos' house was on a hillside, the foundation was several feet deeper on one side.
The slope also made for very muddy conditions due to the nightly rain storms.
Three bands of reinforcing steel surround the entire building at the level of the 2nd, 6th, and 13th blocks.
Special U-shaped concrete blocks accommodate the steel and provide space to attach the horizontal and vertical bars together before filling with concrete.
Plastic conduit is buried in the walls for the wiring, and plastic junction boxes are embedded into the block in each room for electrical outlets.
Here is the progress on achieved by at the conclusion of our work. The houses measures about 23.5 x 21.3 feet, or about 500 square feet.
German & Maria's house.
Across the back are the two bedrooms and bathroom; In front are the dining room and kitchen. The openings for the aluminum windows that will eventually be installed are just becoming visible.
Carlos and Yosina's house.
Though surely not "OSHA-compliant", the scaffolding was very sturdy and secure.
Our team was involved in all aspects of the work under the direction of a hired mason who supervised several job sites. Two hired masons' helpers provided training and continuity on each site.
Jenny was a proficient block layer by the last day.
Ruth looks almost comfortable on the scaffolding as she fills mortar joints.
Michael became very skilled at cutting blocks with a machete.
Katie, like all of us, mixed many batches of mortar.
The work included digging foundations, carrying blocks, mixing concrete, sifting sand, laying block, building and installing steel reinforcing ribs, cutting blocks, filling joints with mortar, and smoothing mortar joints.
Muddy shoes on tired feet at the end of a long work day.
Though it rained heavily every night, construction was delayed only once by a two-hour long storm.
The team enjoyed refreshing coconut milk from fruits knocked loose from the tree.
Staff
The dedicated and capable people on the Habitat for Humanity staff did a great job!
We are incredibly appreciative of Shannon, the Global Village Coordinator for Habitat for Humanity Guatemala.
We are grateful for months of coordination before our arrival, and for her capable guidance throughout our visit.
Sebastian is a mason hired by the Livingston HFH affiliate to oversee construction.
He was working on nine projects simultaneously at the time of our visit
Oliverio and ??? are the mason's helpers hired to work on German & Maria's site.
Vicente and Avelardo are the mason's helpers hired to work on Carlos & Yosina's site.
Avelardo's wife and daughter joined the team each day for lunch.
Santos and Chito are two volunteers who worked with the team throughout the two weeks.
Orly
Darwin
These are the "Promoters" who work for Habitat for Humanity in Livingston as with broad responsibilties from recruiting and organizing the local steering committees in each town to assisting with construction.
Wilma is the Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity in Livingston and the surrounding region.
Ingrid, a Habitat homeowner in Livingson, is the very dedicated and capable president of the volunteer Steering Committee.
Everyone enjoyed themselves immensely! Our team learned so much from the staff about Guatemala, Habitat for Humanity, construction, and life!
Downtime
Evenings and Sundays were a time to explore Livingston and get to know some of the people
We ate most of our dinners overlooking the sea at Restaurante Bugamama, which is run by two Salvadorans, Daniel, the Chef, and his wife, Betty, the Dining Room Manager.
We were glad to support this restaurant. The profits help a school for Mayan children, and it provides a place where the older students earn a little money and learn marketable skills by working every other week in the kitchen and dining room.
Tapado is a delicious seafood chowder prepared in coconut milk.
We ate twice at Livingston's "high-end" hotel, reached by a 20-minute taxi ride and then a half-mile walk along the beach.
Katie is relaxing in a hammock in the gazebo at the end of the hotel's dock.
Darwin and three team members enjoying each other's company after dinner.
Jenny captured Maria's avocados ripening in the sun on the chicken coop roof.
Sunday afternoon we visited the Seven Altars waterfalls.
First was a long hike up the river.
Then we enjoyed a lovely swim at the falls. The most fun was going behind the falls and swimming out through them!
A group of Mayan students performed traditional dances as part of an annual celebration.
Some of our team danced at a disco on the beach on Saturday night.
Achilles worked the tourist trade, always ready with a quick quip and something to sell.
These are the three cute young daughters of Cesar, our boat captain, standing in the doorway of their home.
Here is team member Laura with the pastor of the Nazarene church who visited several times during our stay.
This is one of the women we saw in town each day.
R&R
A day of travel to Antigua and one in the colonial city showed us some very different faces of Guatemala
We enjoyed a half-day boat trip up the Rio Dulce, a very deep river flanked by dramatic, 300-foot-high cliffs.
These two girls jumped in their boat and paddled out to meet us, calling out, ¿Dulces, por favor? We obliged them with candies from our packs.
We briefly visited the school associated with Restaurante Bugamama and were treated to a glimpse of the rain forest.
We were surrounded by beautiful vistas of lushly forested mountains as the Rio Dulce widened into Lago Izabal.
Another establishment we felt proud to patronize was http://www.hotelbackpackers.com/index1024.htmlHotel Backpackers which is operated by an orphanage to support needy children. You can't expect too much for $10 per night, but the restaurant served excellent food!
Casa Guatemala
is a home for abandoned, orphaned, and abused children…
…located at the head of the Rio Dulce.
We were impressed that the children seemed confident and dignified, with no signs of abuse or exploitation.
A Boatload of Gravel? As we piled into a van for the 4 hour ride to Antigua, we chuckled at the prospect of these men loading their boat with gravel.
http://www.aroundantigua.com/antigua.htmAntigua packs 33,000 people into a small 8-square-block area surrounded by volcanoes on all sides.
One of the best preserved colonial cities in Spanish America, Antigua's streets are paved with cobblestones, and many buildings are over 400 years old.
A tour of the surrounding villages gave a view of the lives of farmers and craftsmen, with poverty levels ranges from 20% to 80% in various locations.
Team
A dozen new friends across the USA & Canada
Ally, from Toronto, Canada, will be entering her junior year in High School this fall.
Heather will be entering her fourth year of college in Ontario, Canada upon her return from Guatemala.
Jenny is finishing up her education degree in southern California, and looking forward to teaching in a district with a large Latino population.
John is an IT specialist in the Chicago area whose big heart is sure to keep him active in service to others.
Katie is in her fourth year of college in Ontario Canada.
Laura teaches Spanish in Gahanna High School, and is very active in her church.
We are all very grateful to Laura for continually interpreting between our English-speaking team and our Spanish-speaking hosts. ¡Muchas gracias Laura!
Michael is an architect and a long-time Habitat volunteer in Columbus, Ohio.
Nikki was on her second Global Village trip, having worked for three weeks in Brazil in 2005. She is entering her second year of college in Pennsylvania.
Regina was on her second Global Village trip, having built houses in Ghana in 2005. She has worked for 18 years at OSU Hospitals.
Ruth is an Air Canada flight attendant from Toronto, Canada who enjoyed this trip with her daughter, Ally. Ruth was thrilled to sponsor Mari Sol at Casa Guatemala.
Dave has been a house lead on 7 Habitat houses in Columbus, and has been co-leader on three Global Village mission trips.
Susi has been a fundraiser for Habitat for Humanity Columbus since 1989, and is the organizer, recruiter, and co-leader of the Columbus Global Village Team.
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