Habitat in Argentina: Protests, Fires, and Riots Police

Wow, it's a good thing updating this blog only involves typing because at this point I believe brushing my teeth will consist of laying my tooth brush on the counter and moving my head back and forth! We dug A LOT today. We are digging trenches 2 1/2 feet deep for the foundation of one of the houses. It was a great day, but a lot of hard work. We worked side by side with the home owners - we are actually working on three different houses and each of the owners worked with us all day. We are learning a lot about their back stories which is one of the best aspects of these trips. We are working in an area where Habitat has already built 70 homes. There is such a strong sense of community and family. The mayor of the province stopped by as well. The local government is very supportive of Habitat and their efforts in the town. It is amazing what can be accomplished when all parties are working towards the same goal. The team is really coming together and there was a lot of laughter on the job site.
Me and Cory starting the dig-

Our team and the mayor

Amanda and our new team mascot - Simba

Me and Carlos Jr - one of our interpreters

Lining out the foundation for one of the houses

Two diggers and one of Charlie's Angels

Progress and the end of the day

A little stretching to end the day's work - we're not sure what stretch Doug is doing...

Let me back up a little and tell you a little bit about how are day started. Today is "Employee Day" which means employees are either supposed to have the day off or get paid 2 times as much. Well, when we passed a store that apparently didn't pay double AND made their people work instead of closing for the day there would be protests in front of the store. The protests involved about a dozen tires lit on fire in front of the store. We passed several!

After a long day of digging, we headed off to a "football" match - aka Soccer. The team is in the Premier League (top league in European Football apparently) and the team name is Union de Santa Fe. They played Banfield. Good night does their security put us to shame!! After being THOROUGHLY searched by the female security gaurd we made our way into the stadium. Let me tell you, if you have never experienced European Football, it is an amazing experience. Here are a few pictures and one short video that shows where we were. To give you the short version, we were in a small section next to the visiting team that was surrounded by barbed wire and was LOCKED with a padlock once we entered! The local host let the police know that we were all American's in town with Habitat. Apparently that fact and the fact that the players from the visiting "c" team were seating with us meant that extra riot police were sent to protect our section! The chants, cheers, jumping up and down were quite a specticle. Our team bus got a police escort to the stadium and when we left as we walked 3 blocks to get taxis to the hotel we had police walking with us - not just one cop, but 5!! :) Here are a few of the pictures. Will try to upload video later.

Allison learned that Cory can't drink soda without getting what i guess we'll call hiccups - clearly, they were quite humorous to Allison.