Rick & Christy's Sustainability Adventure: "Charity Starts at Home..."

...however, extreme poverty trumps that notion. Two weeks ago Christy and I went to El Salvador as part of a Habitat for Humanity trip to help build a community center for a newly built community in Santa Ana, El Salvador. This was our second trip in two years. This trip was truly amazing. We were able to interact with the local families and masons a lot more this time. My Spanish has also improved so that was a big help. It's such a moving experience to get to know these people who are so genuine and humble.

It's an honor to be able to leave the comfort of our lives here in the States and have the opportunity to help those in need. It's actually a pleasure to do manual labor for this cause. It feels good to work outdoors building something with your hands.

Our group was a lot of fun, too. As was the case last time, there were only four men and the rest women. At least we weren't honored with aprons this time. The local Habitat affiliate has some really top notch folks working there. They treated us as family as they always do.

If you've ever thought about doing something like this I would strongly encourage you to just do it. It doesn't have to be El Salvador, it doesn't even have to be out of the country. There's such a need for basic housing everywhere. Serving others doesn't necessarily have to entail building houses. There are soup kitchens, homeless shelters or other organizations that are worthy causes, also.

When not working during the week we did some fun touristy things on the weekend. Things like swimming in a lake formed from a collapsed volcano; lunch on a volcano; checking out the local markets; visiting Bishop Oscar Romero's house (Bishop Romero was champion of human rights in El Salvador who was assasinated in 1980); and swimming in the Pacific Ocean. Oh and I can't forget the monkey that stole and broke my glasses. What a riot!