El grupo de caca (The Poop Group)

Hi! My name is Andi Heither. I'm a sophomore Catechesis and Spanish major. I decided I'd better write a post, because my group of five is doing something different than everyone else - we're building a latrine. Yup, a latrine. Not a house. The other thirty missionaries (because yes, if you are on a mission trip, you are a missionary) have given us the name "grupo de cacas" or "poop group." Nice, huh?

We work with cement and bricks, not wood and aluminum. We have no shade in the morning. We get DIRTY. We're in a rather closed off location, so the only people we ever get the chance to see are the family who live in the house (which was built by a group like BC back in August) and each other. We use bricks to sand and bricks to level, no fancy instruments. So yeah, it's really different. But it's good. The *cough* products of the latrine will now be able to be used as fertilizer, so the family can plant and sell produce.

So far, this experience has taught me that people need so much to live. The houses that our friends are building, to us norteamericanos, aren't much better than sheds. Some people wouldn't let their dogs live in these conditions, and these are human beings. People. That are in every single way exactly like us. The same desires and dreams.

And yet, my new friend Nayeli, the most intelligent and joyful child I've ever met, throws a stone back and forth and calls it her pelota (ball). She worries about getting dirty, because while the floor in her house is dirt, who knows when her next bath would be.

Trash lines the streets and meadows of the beautiful terrain because they don't have a recycling system. The government provides uniforms for schools, but not education. The average income where we are working is $120 a month, minus "deductions" and minus all the ridiculous daily expenses the poor have to pay because they can't afford to invest for the long term - water, cell phone minutes, shoes, clothes, food, etc.

But the people are so happy. I was in the truck on the way to the work site this morning and made eye contact with a little boy who was sitting by the road. He gasped and shrieked, "Gringa" (white girl). I'm pretty sure we just made his day just by driving by.

I guess I don't know how to conclude this because there wasn't a thesis. All I can say is that the animals here are weird. Most of the birds here are new to me - they make the most beautiful songs. The dogs are everywhere. Horses feed by the road and cows stand in the road. And that's all I have to say about that. :)