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Final day
Today we completed our week of work just after noon, with a break for lunch and a farewell ceremony with the Acosta family. For our final hours we filled the interior foundation of the house with the dirt we had previously excavated from the foundation trenches and the latrine pits. Three of us completed the
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Day 4: Digging and filling
When we arrived at 7:45 this morning, the masons had just laid the rebar cages into the brick molds (see the upright bricks in the photo below). At that early hour the temperature was around 27C with lots of shade. So a decent working temperature compared to what we’ve experienced this week. We immediately set
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Day 3: Latrine digging!
We started our day with a visit to the local Habitat for Humanity office where we were briefed on the process for determining how houses were allocated to families. The Paraguay program builds approximately 100 houses a year and provides housing upgrades for an additional 400 families a year. This with a small office and
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Day 2: Filling the foundations
We have a small team of just 7 volunteers including our team leader, making this the smallest of all the teams I’ve been on. That said, 6 of these volunteers have been on a total of nearly 60 Habitat builds, making this the most experienced team I’ve been on. One of our volunteers is brand
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Meeting the Acosta family
Nilsa is a single mom who works as a cashier in a grocery store. She and her 12 year old son, Lucio, have been living with her mom in a very small house. Recently Nilsa was selected by Habitat for Humanity Paraguay to receive a house that will be built adjacent to her mom’s. This
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Paraguay
On Wednesday, February 12, I left behind Toronto’s wintery landscape for the hot and humid South American country, Paraguay. Much of the second leg of the trip had us flying due south over the Pacific, giving the lucky passengers on the starboard side of the aircraft a stunning view of the sunnsetting over the endless
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Winter Wonderland Jan 24-27
My partner and I decided to take a long weekend jaunt out to the Rockies when a seat sale presented us with cheap flights. My nephew works at the Fairmont Lake Louise, a famous hotel on a world renowned lake in Banff National Park and we thought it would be fun to pay him a
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Postcards from Vancouver Island, Sept. 2019
On my recent trip to British Columbia during which I hiked the West Coast Trail (see previous post), I got to spend time exploring Vancouver Island. My trip started with a visit to Victoria and the surrounding area. Here are some photos. Pond in Beacon Hill Park Victoria harbour Rodents in Victoria Butchart Gardens is
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“El Camino”
Just over a year ago, I was just home from trip to Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland and was researching my next Canadian adventure when I came across the West Coast Trail in British Columbia. Admittedly I had not heard of it before which perhaps is evidence of Canadians’ general disregard or ignorance of
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Medellin
Medellín is a hip Colombian city of music, art and hard-charging people tucked into a mountainous part of the country. It’s gritty around the edges but has some beautiful pockets to it. It was for many years ground zero of the drug wars but is happily peaceful and quite safe now. On this trip, I
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