News – Page 68 – Hábitat para la Humanidad Guatemala

The Selvin Perez Family

30 May, 2016/in Meet our families, News /by admin

Every night, Selvin Perez, comes home to his own place. He’s often beat after a long evening of work as a restaurant chef. It feels good to come home to a place that has plenty of room, a comfortable entertainment center, and his own bedroom. The house also has a high ceiling to counter Retalhuleu’s inescapable heat, a simple construction technique to maintain a fresh interior temperature.

Before Selvin partnered with Habitat Guatemala, he was living with his mom in her house. Selvin recalls that they were “squeezed together,” which often caused family problems between his siblings and other family members that also lived there.

When he applied, Selvin was thinking about the future. He’s 23, and has a girlfriend who will probably become a fiancé before too long. He knew that in a few years, he would probably want to live with the love of his life, and he didn’t want her to move into his mom’s place with him.

Now that Selvin is in his new place, he’s got privacy that he never had before – after all, he’s currently got four rooms to himself! “I don’t have to worry about anything here,” he says.

Selvin has already added some ceramic tiling on his breakfast counter.

He also remembers the volunteer group that came to help him with the construction. “Many thanks to all of you. Now, I’m overcoming my obstacles day by day. All my greetings to you,” he says.

But the new place has also had an unexpected effect on Selvin – he says he’s become more respsonible. It feels good to make monthly payments on a place that’s his, and it inspires him to keep working. “I feel satisfied here,” he says.

In Retalhuleu, the architects have added a “splash zone” layer of cement to prevent the deterioration of the structure because of so much rain.

The Liliana Martinez Family

30 May, 2016/in Meet our families, News /by admin

“This, this whole area here flooded,” says Liliana, pointing down. She’s seated in a chair in her new living room, on a new cement floor. But that floor wasn’t always cement.

Before her journey to her new house, Liliana was living in a house that had a dirt floor. Its walls and roof were humble – they were constructed of decrepit sheet metal that was full of rusty holes. It was a place to call home, but it didn’t provide the family with the dignity they deserved. Every rainy season presented the same problems: floods.

Retalhuleu, in its rainiest month, gets about 15 inches of rain. Those 15 inches don’t usually come as a pleasant spring rain; instead, they often come as a 2-o’clock downpour that lasts a short time and then stops. This inconvenient style of rainfall really took its toll on Liliana’s house, and consequently her family. Streams of rain would come down the hill to where her house was located, and every time, she had to accept the fact that she couldn’t do anything to stop the rain from entering and making everything muddy and wet.

She says that even though they constructed ditches, “it always flooded.”

But it wasn’t just the flooding that caused problems. After the rains, the dirt floor would be muddy, and Retalhuleu’s humid air made the floor dry very slowly. Often, this would cause Liliana’s children to start coughing. “With everything all wet,” says Liliana, “my kids suffered from coughing fits.”

Seated comfortably in her new living room, Liliana and her rambunctious children twist open a 2-liter of soda to share. Her kids serve themselves and continue running around the living room, playing. If any of that soda spills, it’s not going to soak into the floor. Although it may seem small, it’s a big change for Liliana’s family.

“We’re happy here,” she says, smiling. “The rainfall doesn’t come inside anymore.”

Liliana passes along her thanks to the volunteers who came to help build her house, too. “I liked the experience, because they weren’t selfish at all. They were friendly. I offered mangoes, and they always ate them.” She sends her greetings and thanks as her kids start to mention all the names of the group members.

“Eventually, we want to get each kid in their own bed,” she says. Currently, a couple of her four children are still sharing beds. In the future, she wants to get the house painted and fixed up with furniture.

“We couldn’t have had a house like this,” says Liliana, “if this help hadn’t come. We were a family of scarce resources.” And now she has her house!

The Geovany and Veronika Family

4 December, 2015/in News /by admin

When Geovany came home to hear his five-year-old pleading for affirmation about their housing, enough was enough.

Geovany’s story starts out in a little room up the street. That’s where he and his wife Veronika had been renting for seven years, since they got married.

“We were always gathering money, and eventually we had some amount saved up,” says Geovany, “and then some need would come up, so we never succeeded in getting a house.”

Geovany points to his current living room and bedroom. “Our place was this big,” he says. “One room, we shared it, the four of us.”

Geovany works at a large restaurant called Chichoy as a server. On top of the expenses of having kids and paying rent, he was able to save up a little bit, but not enough to get his own house.

“We spent seven years trying to get our own house,” he says. “We had tried everything, but it never worked out. Sometimes they would offer loans with a high interest rate, or other times they didn’t accept us because we didn’t have enough income.”

Renting a room in somebody else’s house was a burden, only exacerbated by the impossibility of owning their own house.

“I felt bad,” says Geovany. “Because every day, Veronika would arrive and the home owner would say ‘don’t put your things there!’ It was several times every week that she would complain about something to me, so I felt bad.”

But it didn’t stop there.

“My kid [Jeffry], he would go out to the patio to play with the other kids. Sometimes the homeowner’s kid would fight with him and tell him that it’s not his house and that he should get out. That’s what got to me. One day I got home and he says to me, ‘daddy, tell me this is my house.’ That hurt a lot, that made me cry bitterly!”

He wipes his eyes. “It still stings, to tell the truth.”

“One day my friend told me about Habitat, so I call Habitat and they tell me they’ll come at noon. They came and told me to get the paperwork in order. So the next week I had all the paperwork and it was approved.

Whereas other institutions offer for-profit loans, Habitat’s low-interest loan is a huge advantage for people in economic situations like Geovany’s. He was amazed at how fast everything worked out. “Within 15 days the materials came and the volunteers came!”

Veronika says working with the volunteers was a memorable experience. “God bless you all. I don’t remember all of your names, but one woman told me she had left her heart here. She made a little drawing of her heart to show that she left her heart here. We remember each person who was here. Every day to wake up and remember that we are in our own house is an immense joy. To God and to all of you we give our thanks, and may God bless you in all of your work that you do.”

Geovany added, “Many thanks for the time that you’ve taken. We thank God first and secondly all of you because you’ve made it possible for me to live here. You all took on the task of helping us and constructing this house. We’ve succeeded and we are happy for everything that you have done, and infinite thanks! I don’t know how to show the thanks we have in our hearts.”

Geovany mentions, “sometimes I wanted to give you things, but I didn’t have much to give. Either way, it was a really happy time because you were constructing something that would be really important in our lives. It was really exciting.”

Now, Geovany and Veronika are proud to say they own a house.

“We’re happy,” says Veronika. “It’s not the same as renting. We have a place to put our animals, our plants, and our kids can go out and play without worring about being scolded. Now I can say this is my house, and I’m happy for that. It’s an incredible joy because it’s something I’ve always wanted.”

They’re also glad that their house is warmer than the old one, because of the location and the quality of construction.

Geovany is already thinking about the future. “I have a ton of plans,” he says. “To start, this is a project. My project is to finish this one and make it comfortable, and then make another one for the kids. My goal is that they don’t have to wait on someplace to go when they’re older, so they don’t have to suffer like we’ve suffered.”

Five-year-old Jeffry runs around the house as his parents chat. It’s apparent that the young couple is proud of their achievement, for the new house has given them added space and comfort. But even more, it’s given them the sense of dignity and independence that they’ve been striving for.

Eusebio Reymundo Mejía

1 December, 2015/in News /by admin

“Realize that we lived on a river. And that river was really contaminated,” says Eusebio. “Water flowed from the city and picked up all the trash. And we drank that water.”

A thirty-minute drive from Cubulco, the nearest city, Eusebio’s adobe house was located farther than the municipality was willing to provide water and electricity services. For years upon years, Eusebio, his wife Paula, and their three boys drank the water that the river gave them, filled with leftover contaminants from the city. During rainy season, torrential rains would pick up anything left on the streets of Cubulco and take it straight to Eusebio’s place in the country.

They knew they were drinking unsafe water because they often got sick. They often got stomach pains and other digestive sicknesses because of the water. They tried to resolve the situation by constructing a well, but because of the location in the river basin, the well never served because it caved in not long after being built.

“We were really alone, really separated,” says Eusebio. “We had no neighbors. You could get sick or something could happen and there would be nobody to help.”

The family had a very basic latrine, basically a big hole in the ground with no ventilation, which also posed health risks.

Sickness after sickness, the family had enough. They had heard about a lot of their friends and relatives getting houses with Habitat for Humanity Guatemala, so they decided to apply as well. Not long after, they had their own house – one made from cement blocks with a cement floor – going up near the same river but much closer to town.

During the construction process, a group of students came from the United States to help out. Eusebio remembers the experience fondly.

“For me it was really nice because they gave me a hand and helped with the blocks and the sand. The group really worked hard! For me it was really cool.”

He also has a message for the group: “I’m really pleased with you all that you came to give me a hand. I’m happy and I appreciate you all a lot.” He sends all his greetings and thanks from his new house.

“For me the biggest difference is that it’s all calidá, [high-quality] here,” as he laughs. “The adobe house was something else.”

They still use the adobe house. “It will always serve,” says Eusebio. Right now, it serves as a farm for their cows and other farm animals. Eusebio visits the old house often, but sleeps in the comfort of his new place.

The aging couple also very much enjoys the accessibility and comfort of their new bathroom, which is indoors and accessible through their covered patio. “You can get up whenever, whenever you need to, even when it’s raining, and there’s no problem,” says Eusebio, smiling. “That’s the advantage of having the bathroom inside.”

Eusebio and Paula are currently cooking in front of the house, where they are planning to eventually construct a dedicated kitchen. For the time being, their front yard makeshift kitchen will do. The couple is also awaiting electricity, which they have solicited from the national energy provider.

The new place consistent access to potable water, accessible with the ease of a turn of the faucet. And for Eusebio and Paula, that makes all the difference. Paula was quick to show off how easily she can access clean water.

Down the river, however, there are still a number of families who are living in the country, farther than the extent of the municipal plumbing, surviving on the contaminated river water. Paula explains that “they are people of little resources who can’t afford to build a new house.” Habitat Guatemala is supplying water filters to people in rural areas to ensure that everybody has access to clean water and adequate housing. Eusebio and Paula’s house is also outfitted with a water filter, although the water from the pipes is much cleaner than the river water.

The new house is closer to the city, closer to neighbors, and it has a beautiful view of the Baja Verapaz mountains. But more than anything, Eusebio and Paula are relieved that they can release the worry of getting sick from drinking water.

The Edín Ronaldo Marroquín Jacinto Family

19 October, 2015/in News /by admin

Edín, his mother, and his son moved out from a wood-plank house with a palm leaf roof into a new house in town. The difference is night and day. But Edín has fixed up his house in a special way…

Edín’s house isn’t like the others. Although the floor plan is the same, the rest of the house has already been fashioned with a very creative touch that makes it stand out from the others. Among Guatemalan houses, there’s a typical flooring choice: choose a ceramic tile and hire a mason to cover your floor with it. Edín opted for another way.

But first, Edín’s story starts in another house, up the mountain and away from the city. “Up the mountain, life is harder,” he said. There’s little accessibility to services, food, or household items. “It’s really far from here,” said his mother, Matilde, who was in charge of taking care of the house. “The bus only came twice a day, the last one at noon, and from then on, there was no way to get to the house.” The house was made of wooden planks, with a palm-leaf roof.

“We always put the palm leaves in place, but after a year, they would start to leak,” said Edin. “It was difficult. It was a simple house.” The word “simple” in this case also encompasses “no electricity” and “dirt floor.”

“The truth is that you want to try to live in a better way,” said Edin. “I didn’t feel uncomfortable there, because I’d lived there since growing up. But as I kept growing up, at age 15 I realized that someday I’d have to get a house. Because of my job [wage], I couldn’t really save anything, so thanks to Habitat for the opportunity.”

So when he heard about Habitat for Humanity, he jumped at the opportunity.

“This was really my chance,” he said. “We moved because it was an opportunity that Habitat gave us, an opportunity that you have to take advantage of to have a better life.”

Building his own house alongside a group of volunteers was, in Edin’s words, “really cool. They worked excellently.” Matilde added, “the girls, too! And really big men.”

Edin also had a message for all of the eFinity who helped build the house. “Thanks! Greetings to the whole group and Amway, for coming to support all of us in general. We are really thankful for the help that you all gave us. And hopefully you carry on, helping many more families that need it. Thank you.”

“Thanks to God,” said Matilde, especially happy with the location of the house. “Now we have this house. Now we have time to rest.”

“There are a lot of changes,” said Edin. “But thanks to God, many years will pass and we won’t have to replace our roof!”

Edín is the boss of his own masonry and construction company. He works for 11 days at a time all over the country (because in Usumatlán, work is scarce) and then takes a three-day break. He knows all about building homes and he has the handyman skills to be able to carry out just about any type of small construction or remodeling job. So Edín decided that, on his days off, he would continue finishing his own house with ceramic tiling.

The problem was that ceramic tiles were expensive. So Edín talked to some ceramic suppliers and asked for their “slight defect” tiles. They gave him a bunch of various tiles at a bargain price, and what Edín did with the tiles had the neighbors talking.

He sorted through the tiles and made his floor a mosaic of colors and patterns, an unconventional style for Guatemala. For his bathroom, he took the broken tiles and broke them further, in an purposeful way. He arranged the bathroom tiles in a similar artistic way. The effect of his effort?

Edin says that when people come to visit, they are astonished with the floor and inspired to do the same thing. He is proud to show the tiny imperfections that enabled him to afford the tile and gladly tells exactly how to do it.

Want to be a part of the change? Volunteer with us!

The Edelmira Lisbeth Reina de León Family

19 October, 2015/in News /by admin

After years of renting a place with her sister under the jurisdiction of an unreasonable landlord, her own house was long overdue. Habitat for Humanity and volunteers from Global Village helped build her new place.

“Now we’re not afraid of the tremors anymore,” said Edelmira Lisbeth Reina de León, wife of Emilio Gonzalez Diaz and mother of 7-year-old Monica. Edelmira sits, sipping coffee, in a new house that’s designed to resist the force of an earthquake.

Edelmira works as a social worker at the local municipality, and her husband works at a hospital in Tajumulco, at the base of the tallest volcano in Central America. Although they both have formal and stable jobs, Edelmira says she “receives gifts from above” in lieu of any financial riches.

Their journey to their new house started when they got married 8 years ago and moved in with Edelmira’s sister and mother-in-law. There, Edelmira and her sister shared the rent, a burdensome Q/1400 per month aside from utilities (Q/200-300 just for electricity), and split the house between the families. They had space, but there were some serious problems with the owner of the house.

“The owner came and went without asking permission,” says Edelmira. “There was no privacy. Although we were paying her, she didn’t respect us. At Christmas, she told us, ‘remove all of your decorations so I can paint’ but she didn’t wait and just painted over our stuff. It’s hard to rent; it’s preferrable to have your own house.”

Aside from a problemmatic rent situation, the house had suffered from an earthquake.

“The whole part below was broken,” says Edelmira. “The owner told us she fixed it and painted it but then another earthquake came and in the exact same place the floor was cracked. The whole house was tilted forward. And the stairs to go to the second floor were smashed up against the neighbor’s house.” It also caused a pipe to leak on the first floor.

When Edelmira suggested fixing the house, the owner told her to fix it herself, on her own budget.

So, in short, Edelmira and her sister were living with no financial investment, under the jurisdiction of an owner who didn’t respect their privacy, with the fear that the house could topple with another earthquake. Edelmira and her sister applied to Habitat and within a short time they were on their way to getting two new houses. During the construction, a group from Queens University came to help out.

“They helped out so so so much,” says Edelmira. “They were directed by the masons and the Habitat technician. They placed the cement blocks with the masons. We helped out in the way that we gave them coffee and snacks, because with a gesture of food, we showed them our appreciation.”

“God bless you all, and I’ll never forget you,” she says to the group. “I’ve said that there are a lot of hands in my house that have made it a blessing. There are a lot of young people here in the world that don’t have a sense of what life is, whereas with you, how good that you see other realities, that you see other customs and other cultures here in San Marcos. We’ll always remember you. I’ve always said that my house is made by Guatemalans and by others who have come from other countries. Always, those flags that you gave us will be here with us. Thanks for your support, and we hope to see you again. Here, we need support so much. We wouldn’t haven been able to live out our dreams if you hadn’t come and helped us. May God give you a lot of happiness, a lot of health, and a lot of kids!”

The new house, although it appears very simple from the front, features skylights that save Edelmira a ton on electricity costs, and a beautiful wood-paneled ceiling that had the neighborhood talking when she moved in. “Everybody thinks it’s not a Habitat house because it’s so beautiful!” said Edelmira, smiling. “The ceiling is so stylish, what a change in warmth, and it goes without using so much electricity.” As she talked, the room was well-lit, but there wasn’t a single light on in the house.

“For me it’s a great blessing from God,” says Edelmira. “Opportunities exist, and you have to take advantage of them. It’s so much more peaceful to be here. It’s something of my own.”

Edelmira is happy to be in her own house, where she says she has more liberty to come and go as she pleases without having to worry about the owner or anybody else in the house. Her money is also going toward something that she can call “hers,” and she’s paying even less than she was before. Now her rent is Q/630 per month, with a huge reduction in utilities. And she’s proud that her daughter can play around the house without worrying about big cracks in the floor or unexpected visits from a cranky landlord.

The Dora Salanic Sacalxot Family

3 July, 2014/in News /by admin

Last year, the lives of Dora Salanic (29) and her son Luis (7) were changed. After renting a home of just two rooms, this family decided they would like to have a home of their own: their very own Habitat home. Today, this change is greatly benefitting Dora’s embroidering business as well as Luis’s upbringing.

Although the conditions of the family’s previous home weren’t unsuitable, Dora states that she has always wanted a place that she could call her own, “I wanted to have that feeling of ownership and be able to be a hostess to whomever I desired.” Their old residence consisted of one shared bedroom, and one room in which Dora did both her cooking and embroidering work.

Dora Salanic Sacalxot (6) [Resolucion de Escritorio] Of the four rooms in the new home, one serves as a living room, one as bedroom, another as Dora’s embroidery workshop. The fourth room will be Luis’s own room in the future .The family has also embraced their new living situation by making numerous personal improvements to the home. Brown tiles cover the floors, wood paneled insulation keeps the family warm during the cool Xela months, a kitchen, a skylight illuminates Dora’s embroidering room, and bedroom doors help maintain privacy. Nearby there is also a garden filled with fava beans. Furthermore, Dora added a separate kitchen that allows for her to have distinct space for her culinary and artistic creations.

This young, single-mom has already created a nurturing environment for her only son, but without a doubt, having a home that she can call her own indicates the beginning of a constructive yet successful phase in her young family’s story.

The Sebastiana de León

4 April, 2014/in News /by profiles

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.”