During the week of January 27 - February 3 I had a chance to do a little re-bar work and some hole digging with a Habitat for Humanity group from Lexington! The delegation from Christ the King cathedral excavated and did foundation work for a house a few kilometers from where Rich and I are living. The twelve or so workers were an inspiration - working from 7:30 a.m. until 5:00 p.m. for five days straight, performing some really heavy-duty labor while dealing with rain, mud, bugs and stomach issues. Four members of the team were medical professionals, and on Friday afternoon I took them on a brief tour of the Hombro-a-Hombro clinic, for which the cathedral parish has been providing significant financial support.
A different building effort, in the neighborhoods served by the Hombro clinic, took place the following week, sponsored by a university in Quito. About 50 Ecuadorean college students camped out in the Julio Jaramillo high school (high schoolers were on vacation), and worked for six days putting up four houses. These houses probably won't last as long as the Habitat-built concrete block house; construction materials consisted of cane posts and underpinnings with a thin concrete overlay. The Oviedos' son Andres was a part of this team, and we went to visit the site with Leonardo and Marcita, who were clearly proud of their son's efforts; this type of project was unheard of when they were his age.
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