#5 - In Actopan

We rode a tourist bus 2 hours north from Mexico City to our new home of Actopan in the Mexican state of Hidalgo. Actopan is a town of 50,000 people (small by Mexican standards). We are staying ath the Quinto Rivera motel which is comperable to the hotel we stayed in Mexico City. We do have a pool here and the rooms are very quiet.

We met our Habitat liason, Marilyn Stevens. She is a volunteer that knows the area and supports Habitat. We will building homes in Santiago de Anaya, about 25 minutes north of Actopan. Santiago de Anoya is a village of 15,000 people. This area of Mexico is mainly desert with little industry and too dry for most agriculture. The people we are helping live on $5.00 US per day. They will be paying $50.00 US per month to buy the $8,000 homes we are building for them. The mortgage money goes for buying new homes for others.

We had an introduction to the site by Marilyn and Arranja the local Habitat coordinator. After dinner we went to our rooms to prepare for our first day of work.

We left for the site around 9AM and stopped at a shop for some to buy wide brimmed hats. The desert is hot in the day (80 degrees F) and cool at night (50 degrees F). The sun is very strong and we all lathered up with SPF 50 sun block. There 20 total workers, 10 with our group from Virginia and 10 from North Carolina (Charlotte). The North Carolina group is lead by retired Bishop Gary Gloster. We divided up into 4 groups of 5 to work on 4 homes. A shortage of local masons caused one of the groups to join the other 3 today.

Work consisted of helping with laying of brick, cleaning up the brick, straightening rebar wire and working smaller wire for forms. We all met the families we are helping. They worked along side us and expressed their gratitude for our help mulitple times. Here are some construction photos: