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Rocklin and Roseville Today, CA
Aug 16 2005
Habitat for Humanity brings more than new homes to India
BARTHOLOMEW SULLIVAN (Scripps Howard News Service)
KANYAKUMARI, India -- Fisherman Michel and his wife Vivitha said one
of the biggest satisfactions of owning their new home is knowing
their children won't have to go door-to-door looking for lighting to
do their schoolwork. The new house has electricity.
Menaga, a 35-year-old unmarried seamstress, lost her chief asset, a
sewing machine, in the December tsunami that damaged much of the
fishing village of Kootapuly. But on Monday, she too became a
homeowner.
An international team of Habitat for Humanity volunteers spent seven
days working on five houses here and took the eighth day to finish
some last-minute painting, and then to celebrate.
Habitat for Humanity officials were on hand to dedicate one of the
houses _ Michel's and Vivitha's _ as the 200,001st home built by the
housing charity. House 200,000, in Knoxville, Tenn., was also
dedicated Monday.
Armenian sociology student Karen Tataryan, 21, pointed proudly at
Michel and Vivitha's house as he listed the jobs he'd performed
there, from roof framing and tiling to painting.
"I'm very impressed," he said. "It's not just my first time to see
the ocean; this is my first trip (outside Armenia), actually. Habitat
gave me the chance to see the world."
Dick Graham, 65 and a retiree from Knoxville, said he and five other
volunteers with extensive Habitat experience in Tennessee had no
clear feel for the kind of houses they'd be building before they
reached the seaside village of about 4,000.
"There was a little bit of apprehension, but we were real excited to
be coming over here building homes for God's people," he said. At
first, the interaction with local laborers made for slow going, he
said.
"They learned that we could do some things and they taught us their
ways and we listened and we started doing it their way," he added.
"We'd always have the thumbs up whenever everything was right. It
exceeded every expectation I had."
At Monday's celebration, the pastor of the village Catholic Church,
Father Kumar Raja, blessed each house after giving the assembled
neighborhood a brief lesson from the Bible. "Unless the Lord builds
the house," he quoted, "the workers labor in vain."
Mahesh Lobo, interim national director for Habitat in India,
explained the tradition of allowing milk to boil over in a cauldron
at auspicious occasions like Monday's dedication. He urged the
neighborhood to share the warm milk, which he said symbolized "that
health and prosperity also will overflow."
Lobo also noted that Monday was Indian Independence Day, a national
holiday, which permitted all the school children to join in
celebrating.
"With God, there are no coincidences," he said. "He surprises us with
his miracles."
Volunteers worked a scheduled day off Sunday to get the roof up on
House Five, which was no more than a concrete slab when they arrived
on the site Aug. 8.
Volunteer Julius Wejuli, 23, an agricultural engineering graduate
from Uganda, cut the ribbon Monday to permit Anthony and his wife
George Ammal into their almost-completed home. The blue painted
shutters were still wet.
There they sang hymns and thanked Samuel Peter, the Habitat official
from Madras who has been working on tsunami relief since the Sunday
afternoon of Dec. 26 when the wave struck.
One house went to Setlis, 50, and it won't solve all his problems. He
has two sons fishing in Saudi Arabia. The sons' travel was funded
with borrowed money. Last week, they sent word that they want to come
home, their venture a complete loss.
In an interview in his brother's house, Setlis, 50, said he couldn't
imagine his good fortune after being so hopeless after the wave
destroyed his home.
"I have a heart full of joy," he said. "I can see that Habitat for
Humanity is God's messenger."
The international student volunteers have bonded so well that they
are singing songs in Tamil, taught by the college-age local
volunteers who also helped with communication with the carpenters,
brick masons and plasterers on the site.
On Saturday, during a break, they were singing "Amma Enkvava," a
Tamil nursery rhyme that tells of a baby asking its mother for more
food. Spanish speakers Andrea Lisseth Arevalo Ortiz of El Salvador,
Daniel Piliado of Mexico, and Carolyn Beal of Tucson, Ariz., also got
the group to sing some Spanish popular songs. Beal leaves India this
week en route to a two-year hitch with the Peace Corps in Guatemala.
Interaction between the international volunteers often leads to
laughter.
"So you've never seen the ocean?" medical student Ortiz asked
Tataryan, of Yerevan State University in Armenia.
"No," he said. "In Armenia there is no ocean, not even sea."
He was out swimming in it during a lunch break by week's end.
The Habitat work goes on while the cacophony of a village of 4,000
people plays on. Mothers comb their daughters' hair under the
hibiscus-like trees locals call puvarasamaram that grow outside
almost every front door.
The sandy streets are streaked with the red betal nut that the locals
chew and spit all day. Hens peck at ants when a pile of rubble is
wheel-barrowed off to expose their colony. Tamil music wafts from
glassless windows. In the distance, the gentle whir of a giant
windmill can be heard. There are more than 50 modern power-generating
windmills within a few miles of Kootapuly, taking advantage of its
strong sea breezes at the southernmost tip of India.
Children wander around and under the makeshift wooden beams tied with
rope that form the scaffolding for bricklayers, and most workers work
barefoot, prompting volunteer Mariane Whittemore of Knoxville to
suggest that U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration
inspectors might have some problems with the setup.
There will be 6,000 Habitat houses built in India in the
tsunami-affected areas over the next two years. But the effort is
clearly more than homebuilding. Even Indians who didn't receive
houses said they found something valuable in their interaction with
the international group of volunteers.
Selvi, 23, who lives in a fishing village northeast of here that was
more seriously damaged than Kootapuly, said she volunteered to help
English speakers communicate with the Tamils. She had no idea that
she would be a bricklaying laborer, and says she doesn't know where
she gets the strength to do it.
"For me, it is a gift from God, you people," she said. "He has given
me you to share your happiness and my happiness."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
Aug 16 2005
Habitat for Humanity brings more than new homes to India
BARTHOLOMEW SULLIVAN (Scripps Howard News Service)
KANYAKUMARI, India -- Fisherman Michel and his wife Vivitha said one
of the biggest satisfactions of owning their new home is knowing
their children won't have to go door-to-door looking for lighting to
do their schoolwork. The new house has electricity.
Menaga, a 35-year-old unmarried seamstress, lost her chief asset, a
sewing machine, in the December tsunami that damaged much of the
fishing village of Kootapuly. But on Monday, she too became a
homeowner.
An international team of Habitat for Humanity volunteers spent seven
days working on five houses here and took the eighth day to finish
some last-minute painting, and then to celebrate.
Habitat for Humanity officials were on hand to dedicate one of the
houses _ Michel's and Vivitha's _ as the 200,001st home built by the
housing charity. House 200,000, in Knoxville, Tenn., was also
dedicated Monday.
Armenian sociology student Karen Tataryan, 21, pointed proudly at
Michel and Vivitha's house as he listed the jobs he'd performed
there, from roof framing and tiling to painting.
"I'm very impressed," he said. "It's not just my first time to see
the ocean; this is my first trip (outside Armenia), actually. Habitat
gave me the chance to see the world."
Dick Graham, 65 and a retiree from Knoxville, said he and five other
volunteers with extensive Habitat experience in Tennessee had no
clear feel for the kind of houses they'd be building before they
reached the seaside village of about 4,000.
"There was a little bit of apprehension, but we were real excited to
be coming over here building homes for God's people," he said. At
first, the interaction with local laborers made for slow going, he
said.
"They learned that we could do some things and they taught us their
ways and we listened and we started doing it their way," he added.
"We'd always have the thumbs up whenever everything was right. It
exceeded every expectation I had."
At Monday's celebration, the pastor of the village Catholic Church,
Father Kumar Raja, blessed each house after giving the assembled
neighborhood a brief lesson from the Bible. "Unless the Lord builds
the house," he quoted, "the workers labor in vain."
Mahesh Lobo, interim national director for Habitat in India,
explained the tradition of allowing milk to boil over in a cauldron
at auspicious occasions like Monday's dedication. He urged the
neighborhood to share the warm milk, which he said symbolized "that
health and prosperity also will overflow."
Lobo also noted that Monday was Indian Independence Day, a national
holiday, which permitted all the school children to join in
celebrating.
"With God, there are no coincidences," he said. "He surprises us with
his miracles."
Volunteers worked a scheduled day off Sunday to get the roof up on
House Five, which was no more than a concrete slab when they arrived
on the site Aug. 8.
Volunteer Julius Wejuli, 23, an agricultural engineering graduate
from Uganda, cut the ribbon Monday to permit Anthony and his wife
George Ammal into their almost-completed home. The blue painted
shutters were still wet.
There they sang hymns and thanked Samuel Peter, the Habitat official
from Madras who has been working on tsunami relief since the Sunday
afternoon of Dec. 26 when the wave struck.
One house went to Setlis, 50, and it won't solve all his problems. He
has two sons fishing in Saudi Arabia. The sons' travel was funded
with borrowed money. Last week, they sent word that they want to come
home, their venture a complete loss.
In an interview in his brother's house, Setlis, 50, said he couldn't
imagine his good fortune after being so hopeless after the wave
destroyed his home.
"I have a heart full of joy," he said. "I can see that Habitat for
Humanity is God's messenger."
The international student volunteers have bonded so well that they
are singing songs in Tamil, taught by the college-age local
volunteers who also helped with communication with the carpenters,
brick masons and plasterers on the site.
On Saturday, during a break, they were singing "Amma Enkvava," a
Tamil nursery rhyme that tells of a baby asking its mother for more
food. Spanish speakers Andrea Lisseth Arevalo Ortiz of El Salvador,
Daniel Piliado of Mexico, and Carolyn Beal of Tucson, Ariz., also got
the group to sing some Spanish popular songs. Beal leaves India this
week en route to a two-year hitch with the Peace Corps in Guatemala.
Interaction between the international volunteers often leads to
laughter.
"So you've never seen the ocean?" medical student Ortiz asked
Tataryan, of Yerevan State University in Armenia.
"No," he said. "In Armenia there is no ocean, not even sea."
He was out swimming in it during a lunch break by week's end.
The Habitat work goes on while the cacophony of a village of 4,000
people plays on. Mothers comb their daughters' hair under the
hibiscus-like trees locals call puvarasamaram that grow outside
almost every front door.
The sandy streets are streaked with the red betal nut that the locals
chew and spit all day. Hens peck at ants when a pile of rubble is
wheel-barrowed off to expose their colony. Tamil music wafts from
glassless windows. In the distance, the gentle whir of a giant
windmill can be heard. There are more than 50 modern power-generating
windmills within a few miles of Kootapuly, taking advantage of its
strong sea breezes at the southernmost tip of India.
Children wander around and under the makeshift wooden beams tied with
rope that form the scaffolding for bricklayers, and most workers work
barefoot, prompting volunteer Mariane Whittemore of Knoxville to
suggest that U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration
inspectors might have some problems with the setup.
There will be 6,000 Habitat houses built in India in the
tsunami-affected areas over the next two years. But the effort is
clearly more than homebuilding. Even Indians who didn't receive
houses said they found something valuable in their interaction with
the international group of volunteers.
Selvi, 23, who lives in a fishing village northeast of here that was
more seriously damaged than Kootapuly, said she volunteered to help
English speakers communicate with the Tamils. She had no idea that
she would be a bricklaying laborer, and says she doesn't know where
she gets the strength to do it.
"For me, it is a gift from God, you people," she said. "He has given
me you to share your happiness and my happiness."
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress