A weekend in Tecate, Mexico with El Corazon and San Juan Rotary Club By Ziad Mazboudi, PE, F.

ASCE, Past President On May 19, I woke up at 3:00 a.m., to meet the San Juan Capistrano Rotary Club members to head to El Cajon, where other Rotarians from Southern California were meeting us. This is the second year I participate in this annual event to build 3 homes in one day in partnership with Corazon. I was representing ASCE OC as I did last year. Unfortunately, I did not have any other ASCE OC volunteer, however the master builder, John Meagher, PE who was in charge of the volunteers at the house I was working on, is one of our members. Anyway, we met in San Juan Capistrano at 4:30 a.m. and headed to El Cajon where more than one hundred volunteers were gathering to go into Tecate to build three homes. The groups met the Corazon representatives who welcomed everyone and provided a briefing on what to expect for the day, safety talk and divided the groups into three based on the project that they will be working on. There were three color ribbons provided to be attached to the cars so that each group follows its color in the caravan into Mexico. The caravan headed into Mexico and arrived into Tecate without any incident. Upon arrival, each house had a Master builder responsible to oversee that the volunteers are safe and that the project is completed on time and to provide guidance throughout the day. As I had already participated in a similar project the previous year, and I knew my way around lumber and the use of saws, I asked the Master builder to assign me to lead the lumber cutting station. He was glad to hear of my previous experience and provided me with the houses cut sheet. I asked for five volunteers to assist me and started to review the cut sheet. I quickly realized that the lumber was not placed in a practical location and needed to be moved. By that time, the rest of the volunteers were still standing around waiting for direction, so it was a great opportunity to use as many of them as possible to quickly move the lumber. I directed them to move them to a location near where I set up the cutting station, and asked them to place them in an organized manner by size. This would make our cutting and accessing the needed material much easier. I started my project by going over safety issues and provided my team with hearing protection and eye protection. As soon as safety issues were settled, we went over the cut sheets and informed the Master builder with my plan of action which was to provide him with the cut lumber based on the installation priority. In addition, we agreed that no one will take any of our lumber or cut any lumber without going through the team, as in the previous year, I noticed that there was some chaos as far as volunteers taking lumber without informing the cutting team. To organize the lumber cutting team, I was the only one cutting lumber with the circular saw. My team had two volunteers bringing us the needed lumber. So, for example, we would ask for ten 2x4, that needed to be cut as 94. Two volunteers would bring the lumber, the other two measured and checked the measurements, and the fifth volunteer helped me move the cut lumber to the production stack and marked them for identification. The identification would match the cut sheet, such as wall 1, or mezzanine, etc..The cutting team worked well together, we were very organized and analyzed the cut sheets well to avoid any waste of lumber. Since we started immediately, it helped us be ahead of production, so as soon as the assemblers were ready to put together the first wall, all of their cut pieces were ready and assembled together. This made it so easy for them to assemble the pieces. Our quality

control, measure and double checking the measurement helped provide very precise cut lumber, which provided us with praise from the Master builder and the other volunteers. As the day went by, the site was like a bee hive, there were younger members with paint rollers painting the plywood and any other lumber that required painting. The house was starting to come together and by the time we were ready for lunch, the walls were up, and the roof members were attached. By the time lunch was ready, it was very warm, and we were ready for a break. The host family had prepared lunch for us, chicken tacos, rice and beans. We rested for about an hour and enjoyed the meal, then the Master builder provided a talk on what it took to get a house. The family that receives the house must provide a certain amount of volunteer work and perform many tasks over a number of years and submit an application that is reviewed for approval. The afternoon went very smooth, and we finished cutting the rest of the lumber couple of hours after lunch. The house was completed around 4:30 p.m. The house was about 20x20, with a mezzanine for the kids, and a small room downstairs for the parents, in this case it was for the mom. The husband had passed away couple of years ago, and the wife was living with her family with her three young kids. The house is made of studs and plywood, no insulation or drywall. The house has no electricity, running water or sewer. The toilet was a hole in the ground with a cut piece of plywood in an outhouse. At first, I thought this is not wonderful, the house would be hot in summer and cold in winter, no utilities. But, when I saw the look on the wifes face and the kids to have a house when they have nothing, and share a 600 s.f. house with twelve other family members, I realized the importance of having a place to call home. I am assuming that one the project is finished, the new owner will slowly add to it improvements such as insultation or other items to make it their own. At the end of the day, we provided the key to the new house to the family and there were a lot of tears as this was a very emotional moment. There was a lot of joy in the air. So, why Tecate and why partner with Corazon or the Rotary Club. Anything one can do to improve someone elses life is a positive action. Engineers without Borders and ASCE partner on projects all over the world to volunteer on projects that improve peoples lives. It is a wonderful feeling to provide community service in ones community or other needed communities. As civil engineers, we have a lot of talents and expertise that come in handy to assist other people. We should give back when possible and help make the world a better place. My annual trip to Tecate has been great and very fulfilling and I look forward to next years trip. If anyone is interested in joining me next year in May, so our ASCE OC team is larger, please contact me and we could start forming our team. E-mail me at Ziadmazboudi.asce@gmail.com