Block and Roll

The villages Habitat builds are typically where the poorest of the poor live, the “humble class”.  They are homes to construction, agricultural and other day laborers. 

This rural part of El Minya has been described to me as the “Real Egypt”, and in reflection from the noise and haste of the all encompassing “Tourist Egypt”, it cuts quite a different swathe.  In El Gazaer, vendors peddle through town on bikes piled high with fabrics, fruits and grass for the livestock.  

Homes are decorated with red, blue and green geometrical designs as well as Muslim and Coptic symbols painted or fired into the intricate wrought iron doors and windows and for crafting these artful portals, there is a metal worker in both villages we visit.

Habitat Egypt has developed a loan program distributed in $1000 increments (5000 Egyptian pounds) determined by the Habitat board and a local committee of nine, formed from both local and religious leaders of the Muslim & Coptic Christian faiths and former loan recipients who are embedded in the community.  Each committee must have at least two women on their board as well.   The loans provide funding for families to build the upward addition, allowing for extra sleeping space to rebuild the house originally constructed from mud bricks.

Livestock is part of the unit here, and up to 10 people will share sleeping/living spaces, while animals are corralled on the roofs and in the kitchens.  It is not uncommon to find amount the unfinished tops piles of corn set out to dry next to the chicken coop and satellite dish.

The concept of volunteerism is very new.  People greet the bus and crowd around the job site to happily watch us work.  Women of the household prepare hot tea in hourly intervals.  There is a lot of stopping and starting, yet everything is pressing - Vella! Vella! (Go! Go!) or  Kataya! (Enough!), much like the movie business mantra: “Hurry up and wait”.

When a decision needs to be made in these limited spaces, like moving sand from one teeny room to another, the loud, heated Arabic attracts other men from the site until a group is formed.  Results of these conclaves can take a long time and before you know it, tea is being served again.  

Part of our work has been hauling 40 + pound limestone blocks, forged from the desert quarries nearby.  I imagine the same rock beds that the pyramid stones were cut from thousands of years past. The blocks arrive early in the morning and are dumped right in the middle of the street.  We have to move quickly in order to clear them from the road, standing side by side and passing them down narrow alleys. 
 

Sand is also piled out in the open, and before re-location and sifting duties begin, we encourage the children to plunge in.  We lug it into the houses with super cool buckets made from reused tires hooked onto a crudely rigged pulley system.  Later, it will be used for various types of mortar, from flooring to masonry and wall spackle.  

 Although it doesn’t seem like much, we save the families a significant amount of money in labor by just helping them to move building materials. (We calculated that we moved about 10 tons total) Maybe about $300 dollars for the entire time we are there.  For each home we provide help to at the four different locations, this is quite a savings.  

One of Habitat’s initiatives in Egypt is to offset the costly electricity hook up to the grid as well as proper plumbing. Utility bills are extremely affordable due to the hydro-power provided by the Aswan Damn.  Since its inception in 2007, this simple aid program has helped 432 families, with 100% repayment. Habitat Egypt hopes to help 200 families in the upcoming year.

It is only a taste of a typical ten day build, and the team wishes they could keep working if only there were more time.  This makes it very difficult to leave. It’s tough to be a team leader, but especially so in this situation.  You want everyone to feel like they've contributed and made memories with the homeowners they've met.

On our last day, the word “Nartura” lingers from the streets to the committee room to the security laden bus...


“You bring light to our village”. 

In Just a Few Key Strokes by Jamie Lowe

            In life there are times when we feel the need to go beyond our own limitations and comfort zones. This very brave venture and thirst can lead to a life-changing experience. My thirst was quenched with my travel with Habitat for Humanity to Egypt. Born and raised in the United States of America I can proudly say that I have been afforded certain luxuries. However, it is when those luxuries are stripped from you that you examine what caliber of a person you are. What will you do for another that does not directly benefit you? What will you sacrifice, both physically and mentally, to uplift another? These are questions that I asked of myself. Undoubtedly these may have been the same questions that meandered through the minds of the people in El Gazaar and Kolonas. Why would a group of Americans venture to carry tons of limestone and sand? Why would they work in the hot sun for no reward?

            The truth being that is was never a purely selfless act. While sifting sand I experienced the dynamics of a true giving relationship. Observing friends from different races, age groups and sexes working tirelessly to lift a family. Individuals bending their minds, bodies and spirits to melt into a perpetual ladder to bridge a family from where they once were to where they dream to be.

 My experience in Egypt wasn’t merely a testament to the fact that I plaster a wall, sift sand nor move limestone. It was a testament that I can move beyond my own limitations. It was a testament that despite a language and cultural difference the still underlying tone in a relationship is humility. It is the setting aside one’s own ideologies to melt with an unknown group to form a more harmonious entity.