Our project house. Our Fathom Impact task was to concrete Nora’s floor.
Imagine if your home had dirt floors. When it rained , you had mud. Disease was your enemy. Keeping your children healthy was your primary concern. Fathom Impact joins with local cooperatives to place cement floors into homes which only have dirt floors. The home owner applies to the cooperative to have this service, which is free to them. If they had to pay for it, the cement alone would cost $400. Since they only make about $100/month, this is almost impossible for them to accomplish without assistance. Fathom pays for the cement, finishing work done by locals. We, the workers, pay $20 to help fund the project.
At 8:00, twelve sleepy participants boarded the bus at the Amber Cove terminal. Sara Bell, our leader, explained the project during our 20 minute ride to the community, known as El Habiller. This is one of the poorer communities on the island.
Sara Bell taking pictures from the window of the house.
When we arrived, a tent has been set up on the street and a batch of cement already mixed and waiting for us.
A tent covers the batch of cement just in case it rains. We did have a rain shower.
There was a team to mix the cement and put it into the plastic buckets. The second team was a bucket line of people who moved the cement from the outside to the inside where Santos and his crew would dump the cement, spread it and move to the next spot. The dimensions of the room was about 40’X15′. We used approximately 30 bags of cement.
Bruce Wienke shoveling cement into the buckets.
This was our bucket line. We moved the cement from outside to inside.
Santos and the workers would sing to us in Spanish and we would sing to them in English. Songs like Working on the Bucket Line…we changed the words to match the deed.
Santos (right) and crew. They worked so hard. There was no ventilation in the house. High humidity. They never stopped.
After four hours, Nora’s floor was covered in cement. Santos and his guys would do the finish work. Now her family could stay healthy.
The finished floor. There is a place in the back that is for the bathroom. For the first time Nora and her family will have a bathroom inside the house.
On the outside of the house, the Impact People painted and stenciled a sign testifying to the completion of the cooperative project. Hopefully, others in the community will ask about it and want to have cement floors also.
The sign on the front of the house showing the completion of the cooperative program.
Our project was complete. Our team was tired, sore backs, but grateful for the opportunity to help others…to make a difference.
The Cement Team! We were proud of what we had accomplished for Nora and her family. Yea, Fathom Impact.
About the Author:
Annie Coburn recently returned from seven months traveling in South America. In 2010, she created Fab Placez. In 2014, she changed the name of her website to FAB Senior Travel. to better define her target audience, mature travelers. She publishes travel articles from other writers, as well as her own, in order to provide diversity of locations to match the breadth of FAB’s subscribers’ interests.
Website: http:// www.fabseniortravel.com
