Eagle Butte - Habitat

Monday, March 28 (Day 4)

This morning we planned to head over the house at 8:30 a.m. – except the blizzard got in the way. We postponed our trip and ate more bagels, or just crawled back into bed. Once it was time for us to head to our project site, we were ready to get to work. The house was built in 1994, and Jimmy Carter himself built the front porch. But the roof of the house caved in the following year because of nonstop blizzards. The roof was fixed, of course, but the house has been in need of some help for a while now. An interesting fact is that Cheryl, the woman whose house we are working on, has earned this project because she saved $1,000, then earned a bank loan for another $1,000, and finally earned a grant from Habitat for Humanity for $1,000. All of this money is funding the refurbishment of her house.
We started the project by moving out all the furniture in the living room, and then we started tearing out the molding from the walls. We pulled the carpet up off the floor, replaced the stairs leading down to the basement, and replaced the toilet in the bathroom too. Our big project for the day was scraping the plaster off the ceiling (and turning our heads and clothing white in the process). We also played with the pack of neighborhood dogs who stayed outside in the snow watching us with huge goo-goo eyes. One of them later jumped in our van, and we were sad that we couldn’t take him home. The day flew by, and although we made a lot of progress, we know we have a long way to go. The week will be over before we know it, but we’re excited to see how the house turns out for the family, and to see what we learn in the process.