Day 1 on the worksite

We arrived on our build site this morning for the first time.  Our site is located in Luque, about 35 minutes outside Asuncion.  We are building for a 4 person family, Marcos and Carmen and their 2 children Marcos Samuel and Ezekiel.  They have been married for 9 years and have been saving for a house the whole time.  They recently purchased the land and were expecting to have to wait another 10 years to have the ability to afford to build the house.  Luckily Marcos' company helped with part of the cost and also with Habitat volunteers their house should be finished 2-3 weeks earlier than anticipated.  The house will be a 4 room house; 2 bedrooms 1 bathroom and 1 large room that will function as a kitchen/living room, with laundry area located on the outside.



We started with a welcoming speech from Mary and Raquel from the National office, followed by a short speech from Carmen.






A quick tour of the work site as it was when we arrived.

We all took turns digging the foundation.  By the time we finish digging, it needs to be 60cm deep.



We needed to move the bricks closer to the house for when we start building the walls, so a brick line was formed.

We had a break which included fresh fruit and paraguyan tortillas (fried dough with cheese)

We went back to work continuing with the digging and brick line until lunch.

We stopped for lunch, which was a beef stew style dish and flan for dessert.  After lunch we continued working for another couple hours, finishing up the brick moving and the majority of the foundation.  We had to fight with a few really large rocks.

 

Here is a comparison of what the foundation looked like when we arrived:

Here is what it looked like when we were done for the day:

Tomorrow we will be stopping by the national office to meet the Habitat Paraguay team.  When we arrive on site, we should be able to fill the foundation with the large stones and cement to finish that part of the build and also start digging the cess pool,