Year 3, Volume 3: Luján

Global Village: To see the world through different eyes!

One of my tasks as a long term volunteer for Habitat for Humanity Argentina was to accompany the Global Village teams from different parts of the world to the building sites in Argentina. My responsibilities included participating with the building projects and coordinating necessary supplies such as snacks, water, transportation and restaurants.

It was a really great experience for me. On the one hand I had time to help on the building site and work hand-in-hand with the families and on the other hand I got to know people from all over the world.

I learned a lot and had a great time with all the people. In total I worked together with GV teams 4 times: twice in Santa Fe and twice in Luján. In both places I had a lot of support from the local affiliate, without them it wouldn’t have been the same!

The international volunteers also learned a lot. Working together with partner families they were able to experience a different culture. I always felt accepted…and with the last group I even felt like part of the team!

We also felt really connected with the families, sharing the whole working day and sometimes even more with them! If the weather was nice and everybody wasn’t too tired, we had football matches after finishing work. We also had huge “asados” or farewell events. So everybody had a chance for experiences outside the construction site as well. The feedback I’ve heard from participants on every team has been great!

My volunteer work with HFHA finished at the end of December, however, I will be leading a GV team on a trip to Honduras before returning home to Germany in January 2007, and I look forward to this and future involvement with GV programmes around the world. ¡Hopefully my participants will be as delighted as the others were!

Nils Dickhoff

German volunteer with HFHA from February to December 2006