Community Challenge
Habitat for Humanity
India
Feb 07

Chinnakottakuppam is located 15 min away from Pondicherry, south of Chennai.
In this region there were 7942 tsunami deaths and 138,000 houses damaged or destroyed.

There are about 300 people that live in the village, one of the poorest in the region.

Most of the families live in bamboo huts, sleep on the floor, have no electricity or bathrooms.

The children are the most heart breaking! Beautiful, smiling, very friendly and opened. Shoeless all, the little ones naked or nearly so. The older ones in their school uniforms, the girls with flowers in their hair. They learnt our names, welcomed us every morning and came to play with us during every break.

They do not have any toys so instead of playing with Nintendo or Barbie dolls they use coconuts, baby birds or baby rats they find in the village.

It is impossible not to fall in love with these kids, and being far from having my own kids I took all free moments to play with them.
Now I understand why Angelina Jolie continues to adopt children from poor third world countries :-)

People here live in houses made of leaves and branches and need to make repairs on the regular basis. In the course of the year these costs often became too much
and the maintenance stopped as some times people needed to choose between medicine or a new roof. Often they live with the water on the floor.

With help of Habitat of Humanity 75 houses will be built in the village. We were happy to contribute to this project.
Although at the beginning I though one week is not enough I can tell you that working from 8 am till 4 pm in sun and heat for a week feels like a month!

Houses are simple but it still takes a lot of effort to complete them. Here are all the steps:

STEP 1. There are only lines
but the families already get excited!

STEP 2. Digging foundations comes next

STEP 3. Than there is more digging

STEP 4. Foundations are laid with mix of stones and cement

STEP 5. Sand filling and watering

STEP 6. Putting up columns and entrances

STEP 7. Making brick walls

STEP 8. Plastering

STEP 9. Painting

But its not as easy as it may seem as first you have to ...make the bricks, which adds few more steps...

1.
Made from red local soil ,

2.
sifted into a fine powder,

3.
mixed with water and cement ,

4.
compressed in a large manual compactor,

5.
carefully moved to the pile,

6.
and finally dried in the sun.

With coaching and support of local people we worked very hard. The satisfaction afterwards makes it worth every sweat!

People in the village were amazing and when on the last day they gave us flowers to thank for help we could not hold our tears...

Situated on the Coromandel coast, about 160 kms south of Chennai, lies the Union Territory of Pondicherry.
The French ruled this territory for 300 years, and today, it stands as a living monument of the French culture in India.

My favorite place was the food market where in one part all women were sitting in one row cutting the fish,
and in the other part you could find all colorful spices, fruits and vegetables.

Although relatively small Pondicherry streets are always crowded. You can also buy everything here;
starting from underwear, saris, spices or fresh fish from the market (photos above).

Both me and Piotr could not resist taking photos almost every second...

We also had a chance to find out that it is not only New York that never sleeps! Its also Pondicherry :-)
Every time of the night streets are full of bikes, tuk-tuks, taxis and.... holy cows! (Photos taken by Piotr)

People in Pondicherry were really nice and friendly.

We visited local temples, street markets and the sea side where all the habitats hang out on weekends.

Although we did not have much time to do the sightseeing we still managed to enjoy the atmosphere of this former French colony.

Last day we visited the elementary school, where we gave the children some presents.
To thank us the kids prepared a special show, danced and sung.

On the left one of the classrooms, school teacher in the middle and small taxi packed with about 30 kids on the right.

One evening we visited the temple of The Elephant- God ; GANESH, who is one of the Hinduisms most popular deities. He is the remover of obstacles
and his statues are places where new houses are built or when new motorcycle is bought like above. For 5 rupees the temple elephant also blessed me :-)

Last night we had our henna done and for final dinner we were wearing saris.

Indian dance show and traditional food dinner were very nice accent to end our stay in Pondicherry.

Special thanks to Piotr Wybieralski who contributed to this website by giving me some of his amazing photos!

This experience would also not be the same without great efforts of Sam and Markus from Habitat!

I am also very thankful to all friends who donated money for my project:
Nathan, Tomo, George, Rika, Tom, Stefano, Ildo, SunJay, Goly, Nancy, Bartek, Czeslaw, Gijis, Kukulscy, Aptowie, Augusto, Joan, Maria, Cornelia
and to all guests of my party in NYC!

For more details on the Habitat projects visit following website