Category: Cluster 2016

Working in Campana provided me with insight into my future career path. As a student interested in Latin American Studies and working in Latin America in the future I gained ample motivation from working with FOVISEE, Weatherizers Without Borders, and the families of Campana. On the first day of work in Campana I was tasked with the extensive energy audit of Daniella and Sergio’s home. Not only was it was my first time performing an energy audit with a family, I also had to conduct the entire interview/audit in Spanish. My Spanish skills were tested throughout our trip, but the audit was perhaps my greatest challenge and achievement. Part of the audit process is to connect with the family; starting a conversation rather than simply asking the questions on the sheet was important to completing the audit in a comfortable manner for both myself and more importantly the family. I strove to communicate with the family and make a connection beyond the questions of the audit. Performing was not only a challenge of my skills but also one that took both an emotional and physical toll.

Daniela and Sergio’s home was 97 ˚-101˚F throughout the process with about 60% humidity and only two doors to ventilate the entire 2 bedroom home. The roof/ceiling meanwhile was 131 ˚ -143 ˚F, creating an oven like atmosphere inside the home; these temperatures coupled with the poor ventilation and humidity created prime conditions for mold growth. Emotionally, the audit was challenging as I had to listen as the family described their living situation and the incidents and health concerns that they have had because of their home. It was hard to see the conditions that Daniela, Sergio, and their seven children had to withstand.

For the last two days, I worked on plastering a wall on Jessica and Pablo’s home. After the audit was completed by other volunteers, it was determined that the roof and wall should be fixed. The north facing wall was covered with water repellent plaster then covered with a protectant coat of another plaster mix. Overall my experiences in Argentina affirmed by passion for Latin America and its people. I was able to develop my learn about weatherization and most importantly help families live a more comfortable life.

-Written by Oscar Medina

  I clearly remember how I felt when I entered Daniela’s house for the first time. The house was very small, dark, damp and shady. As soon as we started auditing, we realized that one of the biggest issues of the house was the lack of windows. In total, they only had two small windows in the house. Furthermore, those windows were blocked by the pile of garbage and a shelf, so the house got very little sunlight. As a result, walls were damp and full of mold, which could cause the children’s health problems.

With the volunteers of WWB, we hollowed out some walls and put window frames so that they would have a better ventilation system and get more sunlight. As we were working on, Sofia told me the reason why the family had only two windows: they were afraid of windows. The house used to have a big window in the front of the house. However, the window was covered up because when Daniela was living in the house with her mother, someone tried to break in to their house for robbery. As well as the mother, the oldest daughter is traumatized by windows because of her past experience. One time, her uncle intended to surprise her parents through the windows, but he went to a wrong room and woke the children up. Taking these episodes into consideration, we installed bars with the new windows.

With the new windows, the house has drastically changed. Now the gloomy and shady environment has been transformed into brighter and healthier one. Through this experience, I witnessed that such a tiny change can cause a huge impact. In addition, I clearly perceived that we were working not only in the house but also with the people who are living in the house. By transforming the house, we were changing the family’s life too. The significance of communicating with the family besides assessing the house lies in this point. I really hope the new windows will be a good peg for the new departure of the family.

-Written by Kaori Tsuji

On January 26th, we worked on collecting the garbage which was scattered over Daniela’s backyard. We’d been instructed by staff members to stop working while the US Ambassador was visiting and looking around the house; however, we were eager to do something, rather than just stand and gawk at the ambassador. As the simplest way to improve their living condition while we waited for his arrival, we started collecting garbage in the home’s front and back lawns. When I saw the scene of the backyard, where all different kinds of garbage were just scattered over, I lost my words. There were tiny pieces of broken glass, diapers, food leftovers, and many other hazardous objects, and Daniela’s kids were walking around without shoes. The amount of garbage and the smell just overwhelmed me. More shockingly, as I approached the pile of garbage, I found a girl sleeping in a bed, under the sun. The trash was just an accepted part of their environment.

We spent the whole morning for removing the trash. Meanwhile, Daniela’s children watched us hesitantly in the distance. They looked a little bit anxious, and I figured out the reason why when  the second daughter hesitantly asked me to give her back a doll which I just threw it on a pile of the garbage. The doll had lots of stains and it’s hair was almost gone. But after I passed it to her, she held it tightly and stored it in a broken fridge. For me, the doll was nothing but a trash, but I realized that for them those could be reminiscent of their fun memories. Until then, I had strongly believed that cleaning the backyard is absolutely helpful for them, but I found that it’s also so important to consider what is really helpful for the family. Otherwise, I might violate their memories and lifestyle, like I could too easily threw away the girl’s doll, her treasure.

By the afternoon, however, some kids came out from their house, grabbed shovels, and started helping us removing garbage. One of our members asked one of the kids, who told them to ask us. He just shook his head, and made me filled with warm pleasure. By looking at us, even without words, they were motivated to clean their backyard. When I realized, more than four kids, from the age of 4 to 10, were sweating and working hard with us to clean up the backyard. Thanks to their help, we could end up making two piles of garbage and making some spaces without any bits of glass for them.

However, this story doesn’t end here. The next day, we went to check the backyard. Honestly, I felt sad when I saw that new garbage were again scattered over the backyard. The scene really taught me the difficulties of changing one’s habit and lifestyle. That is to say, we might need more complicated and philosophical approaches to keep a backyard without garbage rather than just setting a trash can there. By realizing the difficulty of actually making a change, I was overwhelmed by despair. That was just too conspicuous to understand that the backyard will be filled with garbage, regardless of our and the kids’ work.  However, I still believe that we could make some positive impacts because our cleaning could show a clean backyard without garbage, and kids experienced the work of removing the garbage. That might be a little change, but someday they may choose a backyard without garbage by remembering the scene of clean garden and the work we did together.

– Written by Yoko Taguchi