Habitat for Whomever
How do you say “suckaaaaa” in Spanish?
My wife saw this on Facebook, regarding someone working on a Habitat for Humanity project in Central America.
I just had to grab the screen shot.
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The HforH worker sounds like a culturally unaware idiot. She has several “servants” in her own home that Central Americans can only dream of: washer, dryer, dishwasher, vacuum, ice maker, trash compactor, etc.
Having lived in Mexico for five years without the familiar comforts of the U.S., I found that taking care of my family was a full-time effort that left me no time for fulfilling my reason for being there. I got over myself and hired the daughter of an acquaintance to help me with laundry and cleaning twice a week. (And I probably would qualify for H4H housing now, I imagine.)
Moreover, here in the States there are plenty of folks who qualify for HforH and are driving better cars, eating out, and enjoying tons of other gov’t benefits. I worked with one such person, a social worker, who was completely unhappy with her new home; she was perfectly ungrateful while feeling completely entitled. Before I left the office where I was managing the dole of funds to the needy, this same social worker was miffed when I refused to do her job for her and expected her to work for her pay.
Clean it up at home before casting stones at the truly needy.
I guess the FB complainer will have a nice little bit to put on her resume. There is that.
By the by, the word for suckka in Spanish is mensa.
I was training a bilingual hispanic lady at work (LAPD) while I was talking to a bilingual hispanic lady detective on the phone.
At the end of our conversation on the phone, the detective said to me, “Okay, Miho.”
I got off the phone and said to the lady I was training, “She just called me ‘Miho.’ Is that good or bad?”
She started laughing and laughing and asked, “The detective called you ‘Miho’??!!”
My Spanish name is no longer Tomas. At work I now insist upon being known as Miho. From what I understand, it’s a term of endearment, like “My sweet little guy.”
“Mijo” is actually two words,”mi hijo” or “mi hijito” which is what I call my son all the time, grown that he is: son.
Correcto.
1. Presumably miho denotes affectionate acceptance, but is it appropriate for usage between peers or in a work setting? This is a constructively intentioned question, not an insinuation.
2. Given your Japanese wife and the time you spent living over there, I think of you as Luke-san. The -san, iirc, is an honorific between social equals.
Miho is also a girl’s name in Japanese.
Mami, pronounced “Mommy” is also a girl’s name.
I dated a girl named Mami and loved to call her up on the phone and shout, “Hey Mami!! It’s Tommy!!”
Here’s a Miho. Miho Nakayama, singing “Mermaid.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLA-SPjJzQM
Have you looked it up in the urban dictionary?
You’re welcome.
Yep. From the urban dictionary:
“Conjoined spanish slang of affection. Mi + hijo, “my son.” Can be said to any man or boy, usually by an older person. Can also mean “my dear” “sweetie” or “hun.”
Also directed to guys by their wives, girlfriends, or any female freind and peer.
What’s going on mijo? ¿Estás bien?”
LukeHandCool (who doesn’t always drink Mexican beer, but when he does, he prefers Dos Equis. Stay thirsty, Miho XX)
I’d take it more as “homeboy” than son. She considers you one of her homies.
I’ve talked to her a couple times and she’s a delightful lady.
I’d be proud to be her homie.
Mensa is for a female. Menso, for the male.
So THAT explains all those laughing Hispanics when my female genius friends brag about their club…!!!
Chupa = one who sucks.
Pendejo is about as close to ‘sucka’ as you can get.
Why do I find such enjoyment in watching utopian do-gooders getting mugged by reality?
The comment, “Sincerely we ARE having fun and our teammates are GREAT!” Yes, that’s the important thing, having fun – the natives are having fun also. Can’t you hear them snickering?
I…I don’t even.
I know relatives who live in grass huts with bamboo plank table/beds in the Philippines, who still use old refrigerators they probably found off the street and got back to working condition. Who are quite happy to live like that.
I…
People. -facepalm-
The Road to Serfdom is Paved with Gullible Liberals.
It’s just off the Road to Debt Hell, which is Paved with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
I certainly hope Diane is using “green” pavers.
I live in the Philippines and all I have to agree with Professor Jacobson when he used the word “suckaaaaa”.
A cement block home is beyond bare necessities. Most homes here are wood frame (coco lumber – very poor quality) with a tin roof. Only the middle- to upper- middle-class have homes built with cement and hollow blocks. It sounds like the young lady for whom the house is being built is making out like a bandit.
Also – why are the volunteers carrying the supplies up the stairs? You can hire day laborers very cheap – and it gives them money to help pay for food and necessities for _their_ families. These volunteers are actually taking away jobs from the locals.
Yeah, they are probably snickering at them, but there is probably a good bit of resentment, also.
In those kind of areas, HforH should just buy supplies and then hire locals to do the work, instead of volunteers. Have a HforH person supervising the work. How much did it cost to bring the volunteers to the site, to feed and shelter them each day? Money that could have been spent hiring locals – and giving them jobs (if only temporary) would do more good than what they are doing now.
But Diane is having FUN!!! And her teammates are just GREAT!!!!
And she’s scoring HEAPS of Facebook #humblebrag points off all this.
Who are you to deny her that, just for the sake of some little brown foreign peoples’ livelihoods?
/sarc
Oh, you are correct! What is more important – feeding a liberals’ self-esteem or a starving child?
I am so ashamed!
In fairness to the volunteers, they pay there own way but it does sounds like a foolish investments of resources. H for H should concentrate on schools, clinics and community projects
As a Peace Corps Volunteer in Malaysia I lived in a wood frame house with a corrugated roof. It was excellent. A single layer of wood planks for floor meant just throwing a bucket of water on the floor and mopping until the dirt and water washed away. The tops of the walls had a foot tall metal grid. Birds could fly in and out to eat bugs, which was acceptable. A cement block house meant wealth.
Have a HforH supervisor on the spot to pay locals. Americans go down to make themselves feel good. Hell, there is a lot of poverty in America, in inner-city, rural areas and in between which could use volunteer help. It is good for people to volunteer, but this really is either outrageous or too funny.
I have done quite a few construction projects here – all cement/hollow block. For laborers I pay p150 ($3.75) a day, carpenters get p250 ($6.25), masons get p350 ($8.75), and the foreman gets p500 ($12.50). Those are very good wages here. I provide mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks, along with lunch. And after work, I provide beer and snacks so the workers can relax before going home.
Everyone is very appreciative and works hard because of the treatment they receive. And they know that if they do a good job, I will hire them again for my next project.
Am I building out of the goodness of my heart? No – my goal is to be financially self-sufficient here and the projects I build (apartments and bed spacers) provide me with income. But I also take care of my workers. The good will that is generated by the jobs I provide helps me reach my goal.
HforH needs to think out of the box a bit – instead of their standard model that is used in America (donated supplies, volunteers), they should ask for monetary donations only for their non-US work. Buying supplies locally creates jobs – hiring local labor creates jobs. That is what the locals need, not a bunch of naive liberals running around trying to make themselves feel good.
You raise a good point.
In Africa, the indigenous garment industries were destroyed by the influx of donated clothes from the west. This also includes weaving mills that shut down, which also put cotton farmers and sheepherders out of work. Nice going, libs!
Also, we decry ‘sweatshops” in central and south America. Yes, some are despicable places, but other fabricas that were better places to work and paid the prevailing wage for a normal work day were also tarred with the same brush. Many closed and went to Kampuchea, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia and other Pacific rim states. The result, more grinding poverty amongst the “exploited” masses.
Ever notice that most Lefties have a myopic, naive world-view. To them, foreign travel is an antiseptic, arm’s length experience, built around local attractions and specialty experiences, where they never know a local, except as someone who tops off your cranberry cocktail or puts the mud pack on your face. Their intimate knowledge of politics, culture and foreign affairs is carefully shaped by the Left-wing media and intelligentsia.
My sister, who’s a Lefty professor, has never traveled, never gotten to know a common, ordinary ‘foreigner,’ except as an exchange student or guest lecturer. She’s never had to avail herself of the NHS in the UK, when ill, yet she’s an expert on Bri’ish healthcare. She’s never slept in a hammock in El Salvador or stayed in the Soviet-era apartment of an engineer in Dushanbe, who struggles to feed his family on the equivalent of $250USD a month. She’s never bothered to touch the common people because it’s easier and more correct to accept the opinions of elitists.
While “Habitat for Humanity” is a good concept in principle, in practice it does not require nearly enough “sweat equity” in order to mitigate occurrence of progressive corruption.
Oh, well. As long as these “volunteers” participation is indeed voluntary, then it is their choice how they will elect to help others.
Completely agree with you. I am more than willing to bet, here in the US, that a good percentage of the HoH homes become run down or worse within two years of construction. I don’t think anyone does a follow-up and there’s certainly no data I’ve been able to find but I know from personal experience and seeing other ‘entitlement’ housing that when people really don’t have to fight/work for something it really doesn’t mean anything.
It’s like the parents who take their children to a soup kitchen on Thanksgiving, but not any other time of the year. They do so for the cudos from their peers and to feel good about their parenting.
“Not exactly sure how this family qualified for a Habitat home, but… it is what it is.”
“we are building for this girl next to her parents home.”
Uh, sounds like a few pesos greased some palms. She probably doesn’t qualify, but her family bribed the right people.
Another sad fact of life outside of the US.
Professor Jacobson – if you could get your wife to have her FB ‘friend’ post some pictures of the house being built, along with pics of typical houses in the neighborhood, we might have a better understanding of the situation there.
It should be interesting.
Even before the real estate meltdown, Habitat homeowners had a horrendous default rate despite discount loans and gratis down payments and the fact their cost is only for materials and actual finishing, most of the labor and all the profit margin are discounted.
It’s basically a scam to entice good-hearted people to give time and money so someone else gets a house without working for it. The CRA and the push for subprime mortgage lending is the same thing writ large.
Typical Filipino neighborhood. A mix of concrete buildings and wooden shacks. Yeah, this is _my_ neighborhood
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_FFgdkoMFeF0/Sn5tV66ER1I/AAAAAAAAB9E/B9BMwbCQ2S8/s1600/DSC00258.JPG
Do the residents own the property?
Didn’t our former worst president Jimmy Carter have something to do with Habitat for Humanity?
He participated in some photo ops to bolster his image of the kindly, grandfather do-gooder. It’s an open secret if you live any time in the Atlanta area that he’s really a vile, vindictive, nasty human being. I count him as the really the first card-carrying liberal president to have his real persona scrubbed and protected by the media. That’s another reason it’s been so easy for The One…Jimmah paved the way.
While I’m sure many/most Habitat volunteers are sincerely motivated, it is also true that volunteering for iconic organizations is often done simply to bolster one’s liberal resume, that you’ll need it on your record later in life – Habitat For Humanity, Peace Corps(e), etc. It’s a pan-societal practice, not limited to liberals. A young conservative with an eye towards a future in politics might enlist in the military, for example, motivated only by a desire to check that box on the growing resume. I do believe liberals have the corner on the market, though.