Habitat for Humanity Portugal

In 2007, I had the pleasure of being on a Habitat for Humanity Global Village team to Braga, Portugal. On the heels of my trip to Tanzania, I was eager to participate in more opportunities for social change. I've always wanted to participate in Habitat for Humanity, and the international trips seemed to be just the formula for purpose, travel and adventure. Few people think of Portugal when they think of poverty, but of course you can find poverty anywhere. I personally believe that in a country like Portugal, you can actually do a more significant amount of good with the same effort - it does not seem so much like a drop in the bucket. Helping a single family build a house in Portugal will likely house close kin, relatives, and many generations to come. It is a country with enough infrastructure and historical memory to keep a beautiful gift for a long time to come.

Little did I know that I would become lifelong friends with some of the local Portuguese that I met there. The volunteer staff consisted almost exclusively of young adults right around my age. This was in stark contrast to my team, which consisted of mostly women in their 40s and 50s, some of which I also became friends with.

So in May of 2009, while I was still in Europe, I decided to stopover and visit my good friends who I have not seen in about 2 years, with whom I still chatted with on a daily basis. It would turn out that my "stopover" would turn into nearly 3 months of reflection, recovery and participation in one of the most beautiful places in the world - northern Portugal.

Portugal is such an interesting place and very close to my heart. When most people travel to Europe, the common destinations are generally Paris, London, and bits of Spain, Italy and Germany. There's also a certain type of person that really loves Amsterdam. But rarely do you hear someone desiring to visit Portugal! This is a great mistake...

There was a time when the empires of Portugal and Spain literally divided the world between them, ever expanding. And you can sense this somewhat when you visit. Ancient buildings, bridges, castles and waterways older than America herself are still standing and in excellent condition, adorning this beautiful country of wine, cod and rolling hills. Anything you can think of, is somehow related or finds its roots in this place. One of my favorite Chinese desserts - the egg tart - originated here! Portuguese natas are a flakier, lovelier version of what eventually found its way to Macau, Hong Kong, and then the rest of China. Amazing that something so traditional in China now would have its origins in Portugal.

I have always favored Braga, the 3rd most populous city in the country located in northern Portugal approximately 1 hour outside of Porto, with its beautiful green scenery, farms and animals being raised at every home, and close family relationships. Lisbon, the more famous Southern city, is busier, dirtier and seems to have less identity (and by that I mean it feels like most large European cities) and community than its Northern neighbors. North Portugal boasts clean (but cold) beaches, amazing food and the most friendly people in the country.

There are limitless things to do just in Porto - one of my favorite things to do here is shop. You will discover the most refined handbags, wallets, jewelry and fashionable clothes. And unlike what you find in the US, the goods made here are of high quality materials made with high quality hands. Approximately half the population does very well here, so you will find every delightful thing imaginable at your feet. But the other half does not live so well. Not so much in squalor and oppression, just very much a hand-to-mouth existence. And these are precisely the people that Habitat for Humanity helps.

It's really a shame that such a beautiful country has something like 40% unemployment! Government expenditure is a large portion of GDP and bureaucracy is thick and layered. There is little innovation, but perhaps that will change with the construction of huge Iberian International Laboratory of Technology in Braga. Portugal needs to stop resting on its beautiful and high quality laurels and take a stab at innovation, or raise its profile for tourism. How this isn't one of the most coveted places to go on vacation is beyond me! Luckily inflation is low so it's not quite as difficult to get by and doesn't hit me in the gut the way the rest of Europe seems to. And there is no doubt that the Habitat for Humanity organization makes a crucial difference.

The Habitat team here is particularly kind, fun and thoughtful. If you have always wanted to participate in a Global Village trip to do something positive and character-building - don't give it a second thought and sign up for a Global Village trip to Portugal. You will be so very glad you did. The environment is exceptional, the air is clean, most people speak English (perhaps because the younger generation has some strange obsession with our show "Friends"), and the food and drink are delicious. If you have any questions at all or want some help getting a team together, please feel free to contact me. I would like to return with a team and introduce as many people to this beautiful country as I can.

Here is the link to the official habitat for Humanity Global Villages site: Habitat for Humanity - Global Village

For some reason there aren't any trips scheduled for Portugal, so once again feel free to contact me. They currently have two sites that need volunteers in some of the most beautiful towns in Northern Portugal: Amarente and Braga.

Pygmies in Lobaye

As if it was humanly possible to further marginalize an already impoverished community... I'd like to introduce you to a pygmie tribe in a region of CAR called the Aka pygmies.

Pygmies have a long a history of being abused and enslaved by the Bantu, due to their small stature and lighter skin. There was even a heartbreaking example of a pygmie being brought to the Bronx Zoo in 1916 or so and he was put in a monkey cage. He eventually committed suicide. I didn't know what to expect when I saw them, but an acquaintance had visited a tribe (there are multiple pygmy tribes, numbering something like 13,000 inhabitants in all of CAR) that were doing really well because they were under the care and protection of a catholic nunnery. I honestly didn't expect their living conditions to be this lacking.

When we arrived, there were some villagers standing around these really dismal huts and I thought to myself.. "when are the pygmies coming?!" I guess I was expecting something bizarre, perhaps a very teeny person like in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. But these villagers WERE the pygmies, I figured it out when one lady smiled - some of them file all their front/visible teeth into sharp triangles and let me tell you, it is a scary thing to see - something out of a fantasy film.

Maybe it's because I'm short, but I didn't think they were noticeably small. Not that this is even a reason to be discriminated against, but the difference is literally something like 3 inches or close to that. But this isn't something new in the various continents where shades of skin can be the distinguishing factor between a Brahmin and a servant.


This particular pygmie tribe was nomadic, traveling from area to area in search of larvae, fruit and vegetation to eat. They did not farm, raise animals or participate in anything that would force them to be sedentary. There was a particularly beautiful woman here with tribal scarring and her teeth were filed into points. Perhaps she was the wife of warrior pygmie.

But their lives are just so difficult. I thought I saw poverty in Kaga Bandoro. Malnourished children, skinny, young moms, skinny old moms that probably were much younger than they looked, walking dozens of kilometers for food and water. But this type of poverty.. oh my god. They didn't even wear traditional dress, they literally wore RAGS. Children had no underpants and sat on the earth (there were ants and bugs on the ground, mind you) on their bare bottoms. Babies being held in the mothers' laps peed right into their laps.

It was a difficult day witnessing what one can only describe as abject poverty. UNICEF was working in cooperation with an NGO called Coopi to assist in obtaining rights to medical care and citizenship in CAR. Due to the unofficial existance and lack of settlement, many born to these tribes fail to have proper birth certificates or registration, adding to the problems of an already tenuous existence.

Everything stunk no matter where you went in their village. I didn't see water anywhere. And the worst part is that they obviously felt scared and dejected because they had lived most of their history being subjugated and not knowing how to fight for themselves.

 So Coopi is there to do the very, very basics. They come to encourage them to become registered and have their children's birth registered so that they can have the same rights as everyone else, such as attending school or getting medical care or voting. The sad thing is that none of these (except for voting, perhaps) are free. Pygmies live a purely sustainance-only way of life so extra money is unheard of. But the problems in undeveloped parts of Africa are actually MAGNIFIED here (if somehow possible, defying the laws of reason).


But all this absolutely pales in comparison to the interview we were about to have later with the Mayor of the town that this tribe resided near.

Here are notes I jotted down during the interview with the mayor. The goal was to understand the causes of discrimination and what the sentiment was towards possible improvements in attitude towards this very marginalized community.

Can you describe any discrimination against pygmies either now or a very long time ago?"
No, pygmies are never discriminated against, OK maybe a little bit, but now they sit side by side with us in churches, schools. There is a pygmy becoming a priest - isn’t that wonderful news?!

Okay.. forget pygmies. Does it concern you at all that out of 280 births in your town over the course of a year, only 86 of them had birth registrations?

We have a book that tells them it is mandatory. And pygmies, if they get this birth registration, it is a piece of paper to them, they will lose it in the forest!

Rebecca asked what he would ask UNICEF or Coopi to do to help end discrimination. He finally gave up his true feeling and said the following... "We have written to the EU and UN many times to ask them to build a separate village for the pygmies. This way they will not be discriminated in terms of wages and be taken advantage of - they can work for each other! And this way we can keep an eye on them so they won't steal our crops and animals. They are thieves! They always move around from place to place so we can not catch them!" 

I wish this were not a true story, but sadly..  the mayor of Mbaiki wants to create a Pygmy reservation..