Our Work

Yuyo (round 2!)

Yuyo's house was the neverending project during our time here. In addition to repairing his roof, we ended up returning over and over again, partly because his house needed so much work, but also because we all just loved spending time with him. Pictures cannot do justice in capturing his personality or the fun we had working for him. We worked until 7 pm on our last day, putting the finishing touches on his interior walls so that he could begin to bring a sense of normalcy back to his home.

Violeta

During the weeks that we worked on Nick’s house, we became familiar with many of the friendly faces in the neighborhood. One day when I was up on the roof, a collection of women sat on the front patio across the street and called out to me while I was working. We exchanged a few words in Spanish, including "Mujeres al poder!" a phrase I've heard here from time to time in response to my role as a woman on a carpentry team. It is typically accompanied by raising both fists into the air triumphantly, and I loved this opportunity to share a moment of female pride and strength together. Later, I met both Violeta and her sister Carmen. Violeta is a retired high school history teacher, and shares the house with her sister Carmen and her adult grandson, Carlos. They were able to get a FEMA tarp, but the house continues to get wet and without the financial means to put on a new roof, they are watching the interior of their home deteriorate. With a smaller team, just Ben, Til and myself, and indulging in the frequently offered coffee breaks, we were still able to complete this large roof in just 5 days.

Don Dani

Don Dani – Daniel Rivera has been called the Grandfather of the farm. He has been a faithful caretaker of the farm and its inhabitants for many years. He comes each afternoon to feed the horses at the Equus Center, and during our first experience staying here over the holidays, we became friends; gradually progressing beyond hello and a few phrases to conversations about holiday traditions, and life in Puerto Rico. When we returned, we learned that Dani also lost his roof during the storm, and that his wife had a stroke right afterwards. We visited his house one Sunday afternoon to survey the situation and see whether we could help. He lives high on the mountainside outside of town and has a stunning view of the cities and surrounding areas of Gurabo and Caguas. Dani and his wife live in a concrete home, upon which he was in process of building a second story when Maria hit and removed the recently completed roof. It is very common for homeowners to expand in this way, as families are close and often multiple generations choose to live close together.

Dani’s project was unique to us because it was the first time we were building a roof completely from nothing, and we were fortunate to be joined by Rachel Elkind, photographer and friend from New York City. Rachel offered to join us for a week to document our work through photography and we eagerly invited her along. This project was a perfect opportunity to document a process completely from beginning to end. Here are a few of her pictures, the rest can be found here. For more of Rachel's work, check out her website: http://rachelphoto.com/ . We also gained 2 additional volunteers this week: Kevin and Barb White, who were critical in their support and ability to jump into any task needed with positivity and determination. Without them we never could have completed this project in one week!

Yuyo (pronounced Jujo)

Yuyo's real name is Nicholas, but he introduced himself with the explanation that everyone calls him Yuyo. Yuyo is an active, enthusiastic 81 year-old who lives alone in his wooden house in downtown Gurabo. He speaks a lot of English as a result of living in New York and New Jersey for over 10 years. Hurricane Maria destroyed much of his house, and he pieced it back together as well as he could with scraps of plywood and tarps. Still, there were open sections where water was coming in daily. He became a frequent flyer in the Mayor's office, so they were quite thankful when we agreed to take on this challenging project. No one was more thankful than Yuyo, who offered his gratitude in the form of helping with any tasks he could do as well as copious amounts of water, coffee, donuts, and pastries in addition to lunch each day. Even Ben, with the bottomless stomach, couldn't eat all of the treats we received each day!

Glorive

Glorive lives on a steep road just outside of the center of Gurabo. She is a single mother with 2 children. She was quiet and shy, simply watching from the shade of her neighbor's porch, as we arrived at her house early Monday morning and immediately set up to work. This was the type of project where we needed to work quickly to make sure we could put on new roofing by the end of the day in order to keep her house dry inside. Within 10 minutes of arriving we were removing the FEMA tarp and were able to begin putting new metal sheets on one side within the first hour. Despite needing to make a couple of trips to the farm for more materials, we were able to get the new roof on by 5 pm, and needed to return on Tuesday for finishing touches only.

Elba and Delgato

We were shown this mountainside home by the Municipality of Gurabo. It is a very humble one room home and exactly the type of situation we came to help. Elba and Delgado are an older couple who live alone, and Delgado has cancer. Both were completely overwhelmed by the fact that strangers showed up in the morning, ripped their roof apart, reframed it, and laid new tin on it, all in the same day. They fueled us with as much sweet cafe con leche, juice, and snacks as we could accept. Understandably, they thanked God for the work that was done because, really, how else is such an event explainable? We returned a second day for the finishing touches and to replace the roof on the bathroom, which is separate from the rest of the house.

Pucha's House

Pucha is a friendly neighbor to the farm and lost her house as a livable space during Maria. All of the tin roofing was ripped off in the storm and then replaced with tarps. Pucha is currently living at her sister's house; the location where she weathered the storm, hunkering down in the bathroom for over 20 hours holding the broken door shut the entire time. Now that her new roof is complete, she and her brother have begun the next steps in the cleaning process to make the house a livable space again. We may do a bit more work in the kitchen, but the most crucial part is done.

The YWCA

In general, many people are still waiting for money from FEMA to do work that desperately needs to be done. Others have the materials but not the manpower. This YWCA, which serves a huge population of girls and women in downtown San Juan, is one of these places. A huge section of roof on the top floor was missing, causing water to seep into already renovated sections below. They had FEMA tarps, but no ability to put them on. When Ben visited, the director shared that she had already had people come out to assess but that no one has been able to complete the work yet. We were able to complete some of the project, reframing a roof above two rooms and putting a tarp on, but a lot of work still needs to be done. However, we don't have the expertise nor time to rebuild the crumbled wall in concrete blocks.

We finished our part in this one-day project as the sun was setting with all the money coming from the YWCA itself.

The Equus Center of Puerto Rico - Gurabo, PR (The place where it all began!)