New homes, clean water

Roberto and Leonarda Toruño in their new home [Marcella Haddad]

People in the community of Las Lajas built 20 new homes in just three weeks and now have 14 public water fountains with support from the John XXIIII Institute

Roberto Arquinho Toruño and his wife Leonarda Balmacada Ordones have a new house, which took just 17 days to build thanks to a project by CAFOD partner John XXIII Institute.

The community is down a dried up, dusty track, five miles from the main road to Managua, Nicaragua’s capital. Sometimes when it rains heavily it can be cut off for days.

“The house was finished a few weeks ago,” says Leonarda. “Before, it was very difficult for us. We used to get soaked. We didn’t have anywhere dry to sit or sleep when it rained. The tiled roof leaked.

"When I sleep in this house I get surprised. I wake up and think 'where am I?' It’s fresher.”

The couple have seven children aged from 17 to 37, with the youngest still living at home. They make a living working on other people’s land, harvesting maize, beans, wheat, and melons.

They have been involved with the John XXIII Institute for three years and attended planning meetings for the housing project.

“Before they came, no-one had hope. Everyone had forgotten us,” says Leonarda. “We weren’t motivated. We felt abandoned and without support. Now we are happy. I would never have been able to build my house on my own.”

The family paid for half of the stones to build the house and provided the labour. The rest was provided by the Institute.

Families like Roberto’s contribute materials according to their ability to do so, a minimum of $20 and labour. They pay for the rest in monthly instalments.

The cost of a house is $2,634, and families pay $983 over ten years – that’s $9 a month. The money goes to expand the project and provide more houses for others in the community.

“My mother helped by making rice and coffee,” says Leonarda. “ She was also supposed to be getting a house but in the end she said it was better to help us as we were younger and it was better that we get the benefit. We’re using the wood from the old house to make the kitchen.”

Occasional rain has not been enough to grow crops successfully. The family has had to sell some animals, so now they have less eggs, cheese, milk and butter. Yet they still manage to share the little they have.

“I use this house to pray, to invite people, I put tables and chairs and make food and thank God. I invite the church congregation here, all the Catholic people in the community.

"When we invite the catechists they do a sort of mass or service in the church. We invite the priest to bless the house and to thank God.

Leonarda collecting water from the new water fountain [Marcella Haddad]

“We thank God for people from the John XXIII Institute. They have helped us a lot. Now we have a water fountain too."

Getting water proved a real challenge. When an engineer from the John XXIII Institute arrived to dig the wells the water had dried up and they had to dig down even deeper than expected. Water is now distributed from 14 public fountains.

A water committee run by local people buys public water and uses the funds from selling it at the fountains to maintain the fountains and pipes.

"On Sunday at mass we will arrange a thanksgiving service here in the house," says leonarda. "Each of us has our own prayers. We sing, we are all very happy and give thanks. My husband plays guitar in the church.”

Leonarda’s husband, Roberto has been playing the guitar for six years. “My uncle taught me,” he says. “ It’s a bit broken so I can’t really do some chords. It makes us happy to sing to God.”

Their grandchildren are visiting with their daughter-in-law, Aurora. Her husband Rigoberto is working sowing maize.

They sing a song they have prepared for the inauguration, the formal opening ceremony of the houses that have been built, when a lawyer will legalise the land ownership and arrangements for payments to the John XXIII Institute for the house.

In their house there is a prayer on the wall:

“Home blessing:
Dear God, son and holy ghost
Please bless this house and those who live here
Give them the best of your goods,
Your divine and calming peace in their souls and human peace on earth."

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