6 Families in Debre Birhan now have a house of their own!

Our group of volunteers, paid labourers, homeowners
 and their children who all worked together for my 2 week trip

Our Global Village group. 10 Americans, 1 New Zealander and me

Well I'm happy to let you all know that I am alive and doing well. I have just arrived in Uganda after my 2 week build in Debre Birhan, Ethiopia. I did adopt a new motto in Ethiopia of 'Expect less and you will be pleasantly surprised if something works'. This applies especially to internet. I wanted to keep my blog up to date as the build progressed, however it was a 20minute walk to the nearest internet cafe that could not access the majority of the web anyway. I had to take a deep breath and accept that there was nothing I could do.

The Habitat for Humanity build was probably one of the most eye-opening and life-changing events of my life. I grew very close to many members of the community there as well as my team of 12 volunteers. I will be posting a step by step on our build when I get home and can add photos, but I will let you know that Debre Birhan boasts a total of over 300 completed Habitat homes with over 80 currently under construction and plans for 8 volunteer teams to visit in the upcoming year. I love the way that the recipients are chosen here also. There are over 100 people on the charity waiting list (for a free house) and over 400 on the regular waiting list for a home in this community. Once they have completed saving a down payment and sweat equity labour hours their name goes into a lottery. When a house if completed, the lucky lottery winner gets their house. This works well because all of the houses are constructed equally. If any house you build could be your own, you put time and effort into ensuring it is constructed properly

I dedicated a house to this woman and her 2 children

We got to work on almost all aspects of the construction and dedicated 6 houses while we were there! 6 families have safe, affordable and secure houses with their own latrine this week that were in over-crowded rentals or worse last week. It was a very overwhelming experience and I can understand why so many volunteers with Habitat for Humanity become almost addicted to going to  builds.

A new homeowner stands on her porch twirling
her keys in her hand and smiling

I have arrived today in Entebbe, Uganda. Tomorrow morning I start a long journey to the west side of the country to join a safari group. First stop is Queen Elizabeth National Park to see the endemic tree climbing lions among many other things.

Until next time...