By Dean Horvath
November 5, 2011

Back to Solio today. It’s Saturday, so most of the kids had the day off. The older kids, Grades 6,7,8, were still there though. They go 7 days a week.

Because most of the kids weren’t there, it wasn’t so overwhelming today. We didn’t have the mobs surrounding us when we arrived like yesterday.

The day started right off with a significant moment in my life, one that I won’t ever forget. Rafael and Rachel had arranged for one of the children, Evelyn, to bring them home to her house to talk with her and her mama for the film.

As a group, we’re not meant to be going to see anyone’s house. They are people’s houses, after all, not tourist attractions. But at the last minute, I was asked if I wanted to go with to help present some gifts for the family in appreciation of allowing Rafael and Rachel visit.

Of course, I jumped at the opportunity. I didn’t know what I was in for, and there are no way the words here will be able to convey the experience. After a day of playing with these energetic, happy kids, we simply weren’t prepared for what lay ahead.

After her morning chores, Evelyn came to the schoolyard to take us to her home, which was close by. The village is made of decent sized plots for each family. They are growing mainly corn and potatoes, which are the staples of their diet (meat is an extreme rarity). There were tiny shacks in the middle of each plot that I assumed was a farmhouse of some type. I was wrong.

As we approached Evelyn’s house, it became apparent that these tiny shacks were actually their houses. Her house was made of two small structures, maybe 75 square feet each (smaller than an average kids’ bedroom at home). A total of about 150 square feet, for Evelyn, her mom, her 8 brothers and sisters, and two of her sisters children. Twelve people in total, sharing a shack that would easily fit into my daughter’s bedroom.

The boys slept in the structure that doubled as the kitchen, which consisted of a fire pit and a couple of pots for cooking. The girls slept in the other structure, which they shared with the family’s two goats. There were dividers up within the structure to give what tiny bit of privacy possible.

The floor was even dirt, it was simply mud. The structures leave them completely to the elements, so when it rains at night they get up and stand until it stops raining. The holes in the walls allow the wind to whip right through. Goat feces was everywhere inside the house.

And the hardest part about it was that as we were silently horrified learning about how they lived, Evelyn and her mom were showing us around with a sense of pride. They didn’t show any embarrassment with the meagre accommodations.

The experience was shocking. We walked back completely shell-shocked. Coming into this trip, we expected the villagers to have nothing. But after the day of playing with the kids in what is becoming a decent schoolyard, we just simply weren’t prepared for what we saw.