Today was the third day of the trip and the second day of volunteering with Habitat for Humanity.
Im going to just take a second to point out that I have almost never done this kind of stuff before. So I was left feeling pretty accomplished after we completed the living room painting, the second coat of the outside walls and did some other things. Our supervisor, was overlooking our work the whole time. He was one of those guys that had a hard exterior but a soft interior and you could see that especially when he spoke about the homeowner of the home we were building and how important it was to do the home well for her and her family. I think it is so important to have people like that part of an organization- people passionate about the organization and what it stands for because honestly without them, there would be no organization.
I remember one of the main things that amazed me today was seeing the foundation for the next house being laid down and a significant portion of it being completed. This was all done in less than a day. There was much said about how houses were being built really quickly I mean, we were told that at the fastest paces, two houses were going up every week. But it is another thing to actually see it in front of your eyes. I guess, I emphasizing on this so much because I come from a country where some sort of strike or riot would have already occurred to stop this good work or the whole project may have been shut down due to some form of corruption or the other. At the very least, each house had to take a minimum of one year to even get the basic structure up. None of those dysfunctional occurrences were involved here. There were 32 houses that had already been built and 20 more remaining.
That is what I love about this country. Whatever the case is about poverty here (whatever we experienced and whatever we read in out textbook) people are still willing to help and there are organizations where people could contribute to either physically or by donating money. They know where their contributions are going and that sense of charity, of community is very strong (this is obviously not true for all the people but for a significant number). In my country, even if you want to help and even if you want to better the community you are never really sure how because you don't know which organization is going to actually reach your contribution to the poor and which ones are just going to keep 80% of what you have given and give 20% to the poor (this is of course if the contribution is in terms of money). So due to this, the people also develop a mistrusting attitude and refuse to give.
So this is mainly why I really enjoyed and appreciated this whole experience- it was very different and very good and I'm sorry that we couldn't stay behind and do a little more.
Im going to just take a second to point out that I have almost never done this kind of stuff before. So I was left feeling pretty accomplished after we completed the living room painting, the second coat of the outside walls and did some other things. Our supervisor, was overlooking our work the whole time. He was one of those guys that had a hard exterior but a soft interior and you could see that especially when he spoke about the homeowner of the home we were building and how important it was to do the home well for her and her family. I think it is so important to have people like that part of an organization- people passionate about the organization and what it stands for because honestly without them, there would be no organization.
I remember one of the main things that amazed me today was seeing the foundation for the next house being laid down and a significant portion of it being completed. This was all done in less than a day. There was much said about how houses were being built really quickly I mean, we were told that at the fastest paces, two houses were going up every week. But it is another thing to actually see it in front of your eyes. I guess, I emphasizing on this so much because I come from a country where some sort of strike or riot would have already occurred to stop this good work or the whole project may have been shut down due to some form of corruption or the other. At the very least, each house had to take a minimum of one year to even get the basic structure up. None of those dysfunctional occurrences were involved here. There were 32 houses that had already been built and 20 more remaining.
That is what I love about this country. Whatever the case is about poverty here (whatever we experienced and whatever we read in out textbook) people are still willing to help and there are organizations where people could contribute to either physically or by donating money. They know where their contributions are going and that sense of charity, of community is very strong (this is obviously not true for all the people but for a significant number). In my country, even if you want to help and even if you want to better the community you are never really sure how because you don't know which organization is going to actually reach your contribution to the poor and which ones are just going to keep 80% of what you have given and give 20% to the poor (this is of course if the contribution is in terms of money). So due to this, the people also develop a mistrusting attitude and refuse to give.
So this is mainly why I really enjoyed and appreciated this whole experience- it was very different and very good and I'm sorry that we couldn't stay behind and do a little more.
No comments:
Post a Comment