Handover Ceremony. Last week, several officers from The Salvation Army (TSA) came to Hikkaduwa to join us in a ceremony where 11 families were officially given the keys to their new homes at the Gallagodawatta Site. This house is the "standard" size and blueprint for all the houses TSA has built here, to date, and will be building on various other sites in the future. It is amazing to see these housing communities - and to see the signs that announce who donated the particular section of homes: Ireland, Italy, Kuwait, China, Baptists, Methodists, Buddhists, Habitat for Humanity, UNICEF, etc. The government designates a piece of land, then the organizations come in and build "x" number of houses-in-a-row. So, within one housing community, there can be 6-8 different donors -- but all the houses are roughly 500-700 square feet, and are built to very similar specs. If you are in awe of how fast we build houses… these were built before we arrived. The family pictured hosted the ceremony at their new home. It was complete with an appearance by the "town drunk" (not pictured)! The fascinating part of all this is the irony - as we were celebrating with these families who have gone through all the right channels and steps and have been waiting patiently... directly across the street, we were joined for the celebration by the "encroachers." These are individuals who used to live on the land, before the government “donated” it. They decided they would like a house, since they were here first (valid point). So, they paid a bribe to the police - and now the Salvation Army can't get them to leave. Which creates a real dilemma if the word gets out that you can just move into a house and nothing will happen... then, people quit going through the proper channels and we have single families owning 4 houses, charging others rent, making a profit off the donated houses.



(The group on the porch are the "squatters" across-the-way.)