Permanent Link: https://blogs.babson.edu/social/2012/08/15/building-connections-over-chispa/
Two days ago, our team of nine lounged at an ocean resort in El Salvador, sipping our “coco locos” and enjoying the sun. Fast-forward to Tuesday afternoon, and we were mixing “chispa” (concrete) in the hot sun to build a small family home. This contrast of environment seemed great to me as we attempted to…
Today was our last day on the work site and our departure celebration. We were each able to put in our final efforts to get as much of the house done as we can. Today really involved the entire group working as a team and thus, helped us to bond even more as a group…
Today was our fourth day on the building site and progress can be seen not only in the construction of the house, but also in the relationships with the family and the masons. We continued to lay the foundation of the house by erecting the reinforced concrete frame structure of the house. Every step of…
Tyler and Puja reporting to you from Ahuachapán, El Salvador! Today was our third day on site, and we definitely had quite the experience. After spending the first two days preparing the foundation for the home, we began mixing cement to fill the trenches that will eventually hold up the walls. Half our group began…
Today was a long day filled with learning many new things. We started off the day by splitting into two groups: one teaching and the other building. I worked on the house in the morning as we dug more dirt. During one of my water breaks, I went to chat with the family of the…
Day 2 of working on the Habitat site in El Salvador! Today I started by teaching Entrepreneurship to two teen-age boys from our village. I was shocked to find out that these two young men had already started their own jewelry making business and had sold over 1,000 bracelets. They showed us that they had even…
Today was our first day building and working with the local community in El Salvador. I think going into it, none of us knew really knew what to expect. We all knew that we’d be building houses, but beyond that, nothing more. It was really nice that we were introduced to the family that we…
We’e reached the end of our first build day in El Salvador. It was a great day that started off with meeting the family whose house we were working on. We met Raquel and her three daughters, Stephanie, Jennifer, and Kimberly, and their grandmother. They are all very sweet. We quickly got to work…
Grace Morton ’14: Our Wednesday night festivities started off at a small local restaurant called “2 Paul’s Radically Urban Barbeque,” where we indulged ourselves in classic Cajun sandwiches. Pulled pork and brisket were top on the list for the group favorites, especially when topped with the special sweet jelly pepper sauce. Once we were stuffed…
Kelsey Bronski ’14: Since we arrived in Lafayette we have seen a drive-through daiquiri store and discovered we could hop our backyard’s fence into Walmart’s parking lot. Needless to say we’re not in Wellesley anymore. We’ve ventured into Walmart at least 3 times now- and everyone there wants to be our friend. We have been…
