From Houses to Homes

We are flying home from Guatemala, after building for a lovely family. They are Flore, the mother, Thomas, the father, and three children: Blanca, age 7, Thomas, age 5 and Jessica, age 2. Their home was a one-room, windowless shack, roughly the size of our dining room in New Jersey. The walls were made of dried cornstalks on the outside and sheets of black plastic on the inside. The floors were hardened dirt. In the shack were two beds – one for the parents and one for the three children. The only source of light was a circular, dim fluorescent bulb as the village got electricity a year ago.

They have a small kitchen adjacent to the one room. It has a stone oven, heated with wood, and a small counter. The bathroom is another little cornstalk shack, with a bottomless toilet seat that opens to a deep hole in the ground. The family collects rainwater in big barrels, and uses a bucket of water to occasionally “flush” the toilet. There is no running water. Children under four don’t use the outhouse; they urinate in the yard.

There were 6 adults on our team, all of whom were donating their time. There were also 3 young Guatemalan men, who I later learned all lived in houses built by From Houses to Homes. After seeing how FHTH changed the lives of their families, they each volunteered with FHTH to learn construction, and then became employees. Thomas, the father of the family we were building for, also helped.

It took 6 days of non-stop labor, but now the family lives in a much larger home, made of cinderblocks and cement. It has a window and a locking door, a proper cement floor and a tin roof that includes a plastic panel to let in natural light. On the last day, Flore and her two sister-in-laws cooked a delicious meal for the entire crew. They labored in the small kitchen for several hours. The kitchen was so smoke filled that I could only be in it for a moment or two before my eyes began to burn. However after Thomas served the crew outside, Flore, her relatives and all of their children ate inside the small smoky kitchen. This is their custom.

As the days progressed, more and more children from the neighborhood peeked in to see how the build was going. Most of the children in the village do not go to school. By the time children are 9, they are expected to help the family. The girls take care of their younger siblings and the boys work on farms. School costs money – approximately $5 a month, which is more than most of these families can afford. A day laborer can expect to earn at most $3 a day, and there isn’t work every day. However, Blanca and Thomas go to school. Flore walks them to and from each morning and afternoon, up a long steep hill and through the town of Santa Maria de Jesus. It is well over a mile, and Flore does it twice a day with baby Jessica tied to her back. This commitment to the education of their children is one of the reasons From Houses to Homes picked this family for a new house.

On the last day, we presented Flore and Thomas with the key to their new home, in a beautiful and emotional ceremony. So many people from the village came to see the house and witness their neighbor’s good fortune. It is hard to imagine that the lives of a family can be changed by the construction of a one-room house that is smaller than most New York studio apartments. And yet, for this family, in their world, it is a huge change. I felt so grateful to be able to participate in this build. To be able to reach out from my life and touch their lives; to make a connection and give a little of what I have to someone else, is a great gift. As always, the giver receives so much more than the recipient. It is important to be reminded that whatever we deem unsatisfactory in our lives is really nothing at all. To be around people whose hearts are so full despite having so little is quite a teaching. I look forward to returning to Guatemala soon.