Habitat World Online


	Habitat homeowner Fatima Husni Hamadeh helped build her own house in Al Himmeh, Jordan.
	Did you know… …that a "cultural experience" may be as close as the house next door? The Census Bureau estimates that in 2002, 11.5 percent of the U.S. population--about 32.5 million people--was born in another country.

Culture:
While Cultures Differ, 'Home' Remains the Same
No matter the context, a simple, decent house provides stability, promise and roots.

by Shawn Reeves

Fortunately, Fatima and Abu Mohammed's three children were at school when their roof gave way, filling the kitchen with concrete rubble. Fatima and her husband were in another room making banana-leaf baskets to sell in Amman.

The collapsed roof brought new urgency to their search for better housing. Fatima and Abu Mohammed long had clung to the hope of a more secure environment for their family--and they found it in their new Habitat house.

They live in Al Himmeh, Jordan, a scenic village of 2,000 people, nestled along the banks of the Yarmuk River and a three-hour bus ride from Amman, the capital. Across the river are the Golan Heights and the Sea of Galilee. The village is home to the family. It's where they live and work, where they pray and laugh and fellowship with neighbors. It's where they cook and sleep and share sage tea in the evenings.

Their former house, with its frail walls and roof, was home for 13 years, but the structure itself was unpredictable. "We needed to move," Fatima says. "It wasn't safe."

The importance of safety, according to Anita Barbee, professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Louisville (Ky.), can never be overstated.

"If you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, safety is at the bottom, and everything else builds on that," Barbee says. "If you don't have that fundamental in place, you can forget everything else. That's why a safe place to live is so important."

Today, like more than 150,000 Habitat families worldwide, Fatima's family enjoys a stable house. And its structural stability provides a more supportive context in which to maintain a home--and all that "home" embodies.

The term home is defined many different ways, and its connotations can vary according to location and culture. A distinction can be made between a house and a home, between the brick and mortar that form a house and the relationships, connections and intangible value that make a home.

In the Middle East, for example, home is much more than a place to sleep, according to David Haskell, Habitat for Humanity International's regional director for the Middle East and East Africa.

"A house does not mean just real estate or a place to live," he says. "One's house is a tangible symbol of the family's heritage, its inheritance, its destiny, its very identity. The tried-and-true Habitat for Humanity principles have found a deep resonance within Middle Eastern culture because a house is so meaningful and central to Middle Eastern values."


Habitat homeowner Martha Cruz is pictured here in Denver, Colo., with her daughters Grace and Addy.

Home plays a vital role in cultures around the world. It's where families rest, and in some instances it's where they work as well. It's the centerpiece of family life, where, as poet Mahmud Darwish wrote, "your life and cause [are] bound up together. And before and after all of that, it's the essence of who you are." Theologian David Steindl-Rast said, "Home is where we start from, but home is also where we are bound for, the place we always seek." It helps define people, and when it is jeopardized, so is one's sense of permanence. Home, of course, is a physical entity, but it's also very psychological, Barbee says.

In a more mobile culture like the West, people can become disconnected from community, she says, and in relocating lose their sense of place. They are no longer "embedded" at that point, and those who can afford to may attempt to recreate that sense of "place" elsewhere through architecture or interior design and landscaping.

"Economics do play a role in what home can mean," she says. "If you're poor, maybe you can't afford to move anywhere, and the result might be a stronger sense of place and permanence." Conversely, she says, one's wealth can serve as an anchor, enabling him or her to stay put and thus strengthen that sense of place. Even within a single country, such as the United States, home can be interpreted differently in different regions. Still, there are some universals, Barbee says.

In any case, home is where individuals can feel safe, let their guard down, be themselves and be loved for who they are, according to Barbee, and this notion is cross-cultural. In Japan, where Barbee lived for a time, home is very private, and inviting another inside is a significant gesture. "In America, we're pretty open to bringing people in our homes," she says. "In the Eastern countries, if you bring someone in, you're saying that you trust them not to go against your values."

Whatever the culture, home is a place to connect; it's where family and friends gather under one roof and eat from the same warm pot; it's where meals are shared for physical nourishment and faith is cultivated for spiritual growth. Unlike the physical structure of a house, a home is not so much a property to be bought and sold as it is an expression whose merit goes far beyond walls, a roof and other measurable weights and angles.

Inherent in home is a worth that cannot be bought with coins or traded for gold. A decent house, from which families fashion a home, roots individuals and grounds them in promise and stability. It provides a context in which meaningful relationships unfold along the continuum that is life.

And on a rocky hilltop in Al Himmeh Jordan, that life is a bit fuller for Fatima and Abu Mohammed, who no longer worry that the roof will collapse on the heads of their children. Surely, that is a measure of home.