Day 2 on the site

Today on site we had a few different jobs.  We had to finish laying the bricks for the main stairs and toilet, smooth bamboo for the floors and cut the beams for the house walls.

We were hard at work with our tasks all day.  The stairs came along nicely and the toilet got finished and filled in as well.

We also had to hand saw the notches into the main columns of the walls, which was a team effort.

At lunch time, we took a 5 minute walk to the new Buddhist temple being built in town.

One of our translators Charlie Brown talked us through the murals along all the walls.

After lunch it was back to work.  We had plenty of bamboo to continue to smooth out so they can use it for the flooring.

We also got the first column completely notched out and ready to install.  Before it could be installed, Pat Phen made a bundle of offering to his ancestors to help bless the house and attached it to the column.  

We got all the bamboo smoothed down and stated trimming the ends so it could be installed.

The day wound down with all our jobs completed.  The stairs await their final fill of cement.

The first column successfully installed and 2 more notched out awaiting installation.

The toilet bricked out and filled with sand awaiting a coat of cement in the morning before the toilet seat can be installed.

Tomorrow is going to be a half day working on site and then we will go and visit other families that have received a house from Habitat Cambodia.  Here are a couple of other photos from today,

Meeting the staff and Day1 on the build site

We all got to Cambodia safe and sound!  All 20 of us are accounted for and ready to go!

We officially started the trip at 5 pm. Sunday night with our orientation dinner where we met some of the Habitat Cambodia staff and had a quick meeting, going over the profile of the family we would be building for this week.  Our family is made up of a father, Pat Penh, mother Seng Mao  and 5 year old Penh Veasna.  They also have 4 other children, 2 of whom are married and 2 who migrated to Siem Reap to find jobs to help the family afford a house.  Even with the extra income from their 2 children they have been unable to afford a house of their own.  They have land that was given to them as their wedding present, but the crops are insufficient to provide for the family's needs.

We arrived to the site and started our day with a welcoming ceremony from the family and members of the community.  We were given lotus blooms from Seng Mao as a thank you. and started to work

We had 4 different jobs for the day; dig, pour and lay down bricks for the foundation for the stairs, dig, pour and lay bricks for the foundation for the toilet and dig the holes for and install the cement rings for the septic tanks, and filling in the post holes and leveling out the land under the house.  We broke into groups and started our day.

At lunchtime we were treated to some guitar playing and singing from our group leader Phally.

We were able to complete all of our jobs for the day, and look forward to working on the house tomorrow.

More photos from Lesotho, just over a month until Siam Reap

Here are some more photos and video of the trip to Lesotho.  In just 35 days, St. Vrain will have a team of 20 (Wow!) members of the community headed to Siam Reap to work alongside our partners in Cambodia.  This will be our first visit since the launch of the International Development Committee and we cannot wait to see what this trip holds for us!

Thursday was an early day, starting off with a 7 am breakfast meeting with the local Governance Program manager from the EU,  Mariam Homayoun.  She talked about the 3 main focuses of the EU programs, Energy, Health and Governance.  The EU has found in many countries that it is more effective to work with NGO's rather than just the government, because NGO's can usually get the work done in a more timely manner due to less red tape.  She discussed the project that Habitat Lesotho took part in.  She was impressed that they were able to get done with everything on time, and were even 3 months early in getting their review done.  It showed the efficiency of work done by Habitat Lesotho and good stewardship of the grant money received.   She stated that she hoped to work with Habitat Lesotho the next time a suitable project came around.

After breakfast, we went to another part of Mafeteng district and met with families once more.  My team was dropped of in the village of Tebang, and we met with Malira Ramakobo.  She is the guardian of her 17 year old nephew Neo Ramakobo, who is an orphan.  Before Habitat Lesotho intervened, she was living with her 11 year old daughter, Neo, and 2 nieces, one 12 and the other 13 years old.  They were all living in a 1 room house that was disintegrating every time it rained, due to poor construction.  Neo would not want to go to school due to constant worry that the house would collapse while he was gone.  The new house has brought him much relief, he now has a quiet place to get his homework done and doesn't have to worry about his house falling down anymore.

After we were done visiting the villages, we drove for about an hour and a half to go to Thaba-Bosiu.  We were joined by members of the HFH Lesotho staff.  We climbed up the mountain and learned all about the history of Lesotho and got some good exercise as well.

Did you know that Lesotho has sand dunes?  They sure do!!

We also got to see the mountain that the Basotho hat is based off of.

We ended the day with a wrap dinner with various members of HFH Lesotho staff, where we had a long discussion about the trip and what we would like to see come out of it.  We will all take part in writing up family profiles for everyone we visited, so be on the look out for that coming out this fall.

Overall, this trip was very informative, and I can tell that HFH Lesotho did a great job putting it together and will reap the benefits of our hard work once we return home for a long time to come.

Friday was a travel day to Johannesburg, with most of the team either continuing their vacations or returning to the States on Saturday.  I look forward to getting to work on the profiles as soon as I get back home.

Build day

Today was our only day on  a build site.  We travelled 45 minutes outside of Maseru to the Ha-Mpo village in Qeme.  There we would meet our family that we would be building for.  Our family consisted of Tsepang Liphoto, her 7 year old son Mosiuoa who is mentally disabled, her mother Mampolokeng who is also mentally disabled, and Tsepang's nephew Boitumelo and niece Tumelo.

 The build site was all set up and ready for us when we arrived.

We we also joined by the staff of Habitat Lesotho to build along side of us.  We started the day with a prayer and song from Habitat Lesotho, which was quite the treat.

Our goal for the day was to complete the first 4 rows of brick on the exterior walls.

We started out moving sand closer to the work site so we could mix the mortar.  Then we moved on to brick lines, moving bricks closer to the site.  In a delightful change, we were actually allowed to mortar and place the bricks under the supervision of the site manager.  This was unlike any other build I had been on, and was pleased to be allowed to actually build a house this time.

By lunch we had gotten almost the 4 rows completed, so then they asked us for 1 final push to get 1 more row done, so they could install the windows.  We were able to just about finish the 5th row when we ran out of mortar, with only a couple of bricks still needing mortar between them.

At the end of the day we had a closing ceremony with the family and the local chief.  We were told that the house would be 100% completed by early next week, and that our help greatly reduced the normal build time of around 3 weeks.  The house is in the name of Mosiuoa, the 7 year old, to ensure that he will always have a decent place to live that cannot be taken away from him.

 We all received Basotho hats with our names on them from the affiliate as a thank you for all our work.  All in all it was a great day, an it sure felt good to finally be mixing the mortar once more.

Tomorrow we are meeting with members from the EU for breakfast and then heading out to a different part of the country in Tebeng to meet and interview more families, then we will visit an orphanage that was built by Habitat Lesotho in partnership with Apostolic Faith Mission church, which can house up to 8 orphans.

Meetings, meetings, meetings.....

Tuesday was a day of meetings.  In the morning, we met with the staff of Send a Cow at their office here in Maseru.  Send a Cow is a NGO based out of the UK.  Despite the name, they no longer send cows from the UK to Africa, they now focus on community development.  They spoke about their 5 focus areas of Food Security, HIV/AIDS education and outreach, Gender and Social development, Enterprise development and Water and Sanitation.  They had brought Habitat Lesotho in as a partner on a 3 year EU funded project, with Habitat Lesotho taking on the sanitation side.  Over the course of the last 3 years, Habitat Lesotho built 390 pit latrines and created a pamphlet on hygiene and pit latrine maintenance that was given to 2400 people, all with funds from Send a Cow.  Send a Cow Lesotho has expressed interest in continuing a relationship with Habitat Lesotho, since their goals are very much alike.  Send a Cow Lesotho also worked with FIDA Lesotho, a organization of lawyers that helped secure property rights for orphans and vulnerable groups.  This helps prevent the possibility of property grabbing when the parents or guardians of these vulnerable groups pass away.  They also helped draft and create 150 wills for Basotho people, which will also secure their property rights.  During this meeting, we were able to see firsthand what a good partner they had found in Send a Cow.

After this meeting, we stopped at Save the Children orphanage.  While we were unable to tour the orphanage, we were able to stop at Maseru Tapestry which supported the orphanage and purchase some souvenirs.

Our big meeting was with the Minister of Social Development, Honorable Minister Molahlehi Letlotlo and his Principal Secretary Selloane Qhobela.  We started out the meeting with the Minister outlining the mandate of their office, which is very similar to the mission of Habitat.  They focus on moving people out of a welfare situation to one of self-dependence, which is the same as Habitat's policy of "A hand up, not a hand out."  The ministry mostly focuses on education and health care, with housing being a low priority.   We talked about our experiences visiting the families in Mathebe the day before, and how much having safe housing had changed their lives for the better.  We were there to help demonstrate the power of safe housing to improve the overall quality of life for the people served.

We left the meeting with a good feeling that the partnership between the Ministry and Habitat would only grow stronger.

We ended the night with a dinner with Mathabo and 5 members of the board at a local Indian/Basotho fusion restaurant called The Regal Restaurant.  It was a great and informative meeting that lasted over 2 hours.

Tomorrow we will be on the build site in Ha-Mpo village in Qeme, Maseru.  It will be nice to get my hands dirty once again.

Here are a couple more random pictures from the week so far:

Cancelled flights, long travel days and getting down to work!

So, after a cancelled flight which resulted in an unexpected overnight stay in London, not getting into Johannesburg until 11pm Saturday, and a longer than expected drive across South Africa, I have finally made it into Lesotho, as of 6pm Sunday night.  We were meant to have lunch with some of the Habitat Lesotho team at the Cranberry Cottage in Ladybird, South Africa, but due to our drive taking 2 hours longer than expected, we were unable to meet with them before the restaurant closed.  We were able to follow them back in to Lesotho and actually walk across the border into Lesotho, which was pretty cool.  That wrapped up my long travel days from Colorado and we as a team just got dinner and hit the hay.

Monday morning we had a meeting with the Habitat Lesotho Executive Director Mathabo Makuta and the Advocacy and Resource Development leader Bohlokoa Mokhotho to go over the programs that the affiliate currently has in place and what they would like to accomplish in the future.  We also discussed what the focus should be for our meeting with the Minister of Social Development tomorrow morning.  I was reunited with a very special art piece as well.

 After our meeting, we headed out to Mathebe and Ha-Semoli, which was about 1 hour south of Maseru.  After meeting with the local chief, who helps Habitat Lesotho find families who would qualify for housing, we had lunch on the mountainside as a team.  After lunch, we split in to 2 group to go meet and interview families who had received housing through Habitat Lesotho.  The family that I met with has such a powerful story, that I cannot wait to share with you, I just need time to process the story and do it justice.