tuanis

hey everybody!
it has taken a bit getting settled in down here but i am going to dedicate myself more regularly to the blog. i´m still working on getting internet at work and we are close so i should be able to stop using the internet cafe pretty soon.
Anyways i´ve been in Costa Rica now over two weeks and working with Habitat for Humanity. My job is pretty interesting. with my construction background i´ve been placed in a office that deals with the construction of new houses. it is pretty interesting. the houses are nothing special. they range between 42meters squared and 51 meters squared. i haven´t done the conversion to feet yet. They used to be built all with masonry block but now they are going with mostly prefabricated walls and columns. They are doing this mostly because it goes up an lot faster than with brick and is cheaper.

i´ve been visiting a lot of sites lately as there have been international volunteer groups (brigades) that have been helping in the construction. they get all the fun jobs like digging the septic tank and all the holes for the columns, which there are 30 on each house and are about 2.5ft deep each hole. the prefabicated walls are mostly pieces about five feet by 2.5ft and they are positioned between two columns and then sections are stacked one on top of the other to make the wall. the columns are keyed so the panels fit snug and each panel is keyed so they lock together with one another when stacked. the walls are only 2-3in thick.
Pretty simple in all. Biggest difference i have noted is the lack on insulation and no strip footing. Obviously you value engineer some things out so you can build the house for $6,000.

Aside from work, i feel even more at home in Costa Rica than I ever have before. Living in the city has been kind of a change. We have lukewarm shower water and some cable channels and I don´t get rice and beans every meal. I was expecting less but i guess this will do ;) My host father is an artist and does a lot of neat paintings. he is working on illustrations for a book written about the costa rican civil war. they just finished building their new house and it is pretty nice. small and concrete but sufficient. The lot they were on used to be one big lot but they wanted to tear the house down and build two houses. One for my host dad and one for his mother. it was quite an ordeal i guess to get the lot split as the city didn´t want them to do it unless my host dad built both of the houses. i guess the gov was real leary on giving loans to senior citizens and didnt want to give a big loan to my host father to build both houses. Habitat for humanity ended up helping my family out as the bank was not going to loan them the money to build both houses. Long story short we just have to finish up the kitchen and do some painting and the house will be complete.

well that is just a tiny bit on what has been going on down here. next time i write i´ll get more into just how habitat works. they actually do a lot more than what i thought they did.

tuanis,