When I tell people I work for Habitat for Humanity in Costa Rica, there first reaction is usually, “cool, so you build houses?” When I explain that I manage an international volunteer program, I can see the excitement and interest drain from people´s faces. It’s palpable (for a more detailed and boring account of my job, please refer to an earlier blog posting).
Well now I can at least respond, “ocassionally I do build houses.” I finally organized and participated in a build with three other people from the Area Office. The two guys are Jayffer and Marco. Jayffer is a friendly guy that works in Finance and Marco works in the same department as me (Communications and Community Mobilization), shooting promotional and informational videos and shorts for Habitat LAC. He actually lived in Silver Spring for 6 months and is really cool, or tuanis, as they say here. We’ve hung out a couple of times and played soccer together. Lucy works in HR and I´ll leave it at that.
As for the location of the build, it was on a hillside in Naranjo, about 45 minutes west of San Jose. We helped level the floor with shovels and did various other things which aren’t interesting enough to explain. We also met the family that will eventually live there. It was a rewarding experience and it was nice to get out of the man-made prison that is my upholstered cubicle. I find that humming the theme to MacGyver or The A-Team really enhances viewing experience.
Pura Vida!
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