Lessons from the locals

This is Lyndon and Cara from Sydney, Nova Scotia and today was our first day of work on four new houses for four great families. It was HOT! We broke into groups and got right to work…let us just say that mixing cement by hand is harder than you can imagine. That, on top of the extreme heat, was something you can’t exactly prepare for.

We both spent the majority of our day mixing cement and carrying cinder blocks. We also played with the children, brushed up on our Spanish by interacting with the locals, and Cara helped build up the walls of a home, while Lyndon soon found out he was a ‘Stella Ella Hola’ champion. With everything that was going on, our time in Neuvo Renacer flew by. With only 10 minutes left of our day, it was amazing to see our team come together with members of the community to make a chain to move the rest of the cinder blocks to the site. As a group we carried 300 cinder blocks down from the street.

During the 40 minute drive back to our resort we had plenty of time to discuss everyone’s experiences throughout the day. The thing that came up repeatedly was how little they had but how happy they were all the time. This made us realize that LiveDifferent has, and is continuing to have, a huge impact on the lives of the people living in Neuvo Renacer.

Later in the evening our team met to debrief on our work day. We began by discussing what had impacted us the most and the feelings we had experienced, both positive and negative. After hearing everyone’s take on the day we quickly realized the difference between needs and wants. We learned that what we may perceive as needs back home in Canada are not in fact needs. They are just wants that we think we need. They are materialistic and we could easily survive without them. By seeing the way the people of Neuvo Renacer live, it has really opened our eyes and shown us the true difference between a need and a want. We have many needs that we take for granted and many wants that we don’t actually need. We have learnt so much from the people of this community already. We can’t wait to see what else we learn this week!

Lyndon and Cara ~ Hero Holiday Volunteers 2013