Sebastiana de Le’on lives with her son Luis, a teacher, and his three children outside of Santa Cruz, Quiché. Although Sebastiana was on vacation when her home was visited, Luis proudly gave us a tour of their new Habitat home. 

Previously this family lived in a house made of walls of adobe bricks, a ceiling of tiles, and a floor of dirt. Luis explained that this home left them scared during earthquakes that occur on a regular basis, “Before we lived in fear, but now we feel more secure each time we feel the earth shake beneath us.”

After only 20 days of hard work provided by local masons, this family has a new home with three rooms. Two of these rooms are used as bedrooms while the other is a living room where Luis keeps all of his books and other teaching materials.

Luis explains that his family has been affected by the war and may never fully recover, but they are hopeful now that they are in their new home. “Now, we feel content. We can finally move forward.”

“It burned the tortillas,” said Eulalia. Her old, basic, open-fire stove was very low to the ground and in such a bad state that she rarely used it. But that changed with the arrival of a smokeless stove from Habitat for Humanity.

Eulalia Josefina Lopez Silvestre lives in the canton of San Sebastian, Jacaltenango with her husband Javier, a local farmer, and three children, Irene (15), Rommel (12) and Ever (10). The family lives in a three room house, with walls made from a mix of cinder block, wood and tin sheets. The three children are all currently studying at school with Irene, the eldest, starting high school in the coming year.

Eulalia experienced back problems and a sore throat stemming from the use of the old stove. Furthermore due to her leaking roof, water would always fall into the fire, reducing its heat and increasing the smoke released.

Eulalia is a stay at home mother, but with her new stove she thinks she “will start selling tortillas, because the stove is very big.” Furthermore due to its design she said “I want to start making bread, something I couldn’t do previously.”

With obvious pride for her “very beautiful” stove Eulalia thanks Habitat, “I never have the capacity to make a stove like this, it will help my family and I tremendously.”