Habitat Build

Bright and Early – 7 am I walk to the Hospital Mexico – which is about 10 minutes from Maximo’s house; and grab a taxi. Communication with the taxi driver is hilarious, and we both end up sharing a good laugh, as well as reaching our destination – the Bus Station. The Bus system in Costa Rica is Phenominal!!! Beautiful, clean, high quality buses extend to a comprehensive network all over the country. Samantha (another volunteer from Columbia University) and I hop on the bus to San Ramon, and arrive an hour later after a beautiful drive through the Costa Rican countryside. In San Ramon, we grab a taxi and take it out to the Build site in the neighboring tiny town of San Raphael, where we meet up with Wes and get introduced to a brigade of students from Ohio State who are down here volunteering for 2 weeks. After meeting the construction site foreman, and the homeowners with whom we are building, we got right to work. As one of the stronger men there I had to take on the heavy lifting tasks…primarily making cement from scratch…which consisted of 7 big buckets of sand, 5 big buckets of rocks, 2 big buckets of water and a HUGE 50kg (120 pound) bag of cement….after lifting all of those ingredients into the cement mixer, I used a wheel barrow to deliver the cement to the workers who were building the front porch and the septic tanks in the back of the 3 houses we were working on. In All I produced 8 batches of cement (and have a sore back and shoulders today to attest to it :o). A couple times throughout the day I pulled out my camera and took some photographs for my two projects: Environmental Impact Assessment of the construction process, as well as a safety orientation for volunteers. After lunch and some time chatting with the Ohio state kids, and playing with the local Tico dogs, I went subterranean, and finished digging the final septic system hole which is 8 feet deep, and 6 feet wide, and 8 feet long. The last part of the afternoon was spent hoisting buckets of cement onto the top of the walls, where others were completing the walls and beginning the roof. All in all it was a phenomenal day; great weather, good people, honest labor and the satisfaction of seeing the smile on the faces of the homeowners as their home progresses along towards its finish.