Our build site was located in Santa Cruz, which is in the Guanacaste Province of northern Costa Rica. In many Habitat for Humanity builds, you work on a house along side a family. Our project was different. There was a small neighborhood of nine Habitat for Humanity houses that were recently completed and we were going to build a pavilion for a children’s play area and dig drainage ditches around the property lines. The families were excited to have us and supported us through out the week.
It seemed that during the past rainy season, the area around the homes flooded. The pictures that were shown to me were startling. Though the children’s play area was important to the quality of life of the families, it was obvious that helping the site develop a proper drainage system would be essential to the families.
After a few days of working with the families, they became comfortable in talking to us about their concerns regarding the work that was proposed for the neighborhood site. They were concerned the drainage ditches that would be around the site would be irrelevant if the city didn’t agree to dig a ditch in the public right of way and connect them to the major city drainage ditches along the main roads. The Habitat for Humanity Chapter was confident that the city would get around to doing the work. The families were concerned that the city would take a few seasons before they would do their work.
My immediate reaction was that we needed to contact the city and cut through the red tape to find out when this was going to be completed. Of course, we were not in East Lansing anymore. I couldn’t get on the phone and try to get this resolved. I was just a cog in the machine. Reality put me back into my place. My role was to be supportive, listen and do the manual labor that was needed. The Habitat Chapter and the families would need to be the advocates. For a person who enjoys being in control, I will admit it was a bitter realization.
Submitted by Sam Singh
Sam Singh is an affiliated consultant with the Lansing-based firm, Public Policy Associates. He currently is on sabbatical traveling the world. You can contact Sam at singhsam94@gmail.com
Filed under: Volunteerism | Tagged: habitat for humanity, sam singh
