Cow Poop, what good is it?

Wheww, it´s been a long week. My fellow classmates and I just finished our week long service project. We were to build a makeshift stove for the ladies in a rural impoverished area of Granada. Currently most women cook inside their homes on literally a pile of wood with a little sheet of metal over the top of it (note to self don´t complain my microwave takes too long) As you can imagine this produces an atmosphere akin to a smokey bar (so I´ve been told) and the ladies and children breathe in all this soot and it builds up in their lungs. So the idea was to build this outdoor stove called a Fogon outside of the home. This is what our list of materials consisted of 4 full sized bricks, 2 brick halves, 1 pile of dirt, straw, a sort of dry grass( pokey, ouch) lots of annoying rocks (rude, who invited them?) water, ashes and dry cow poop! Yeppers people lots of cow poopie which we had to go out and collect ourselves. Mix it all up, with your hands of course and what do you get? Brownies of course. Just kidding, you get a cement mixture that led to the final product of a functioning stove for the family. We built 5 altogether under the most humid, hot, and buggy conditions. Did I mention we had no bathrooms? I promise to never complain about cleaning my kitchen again( ok at least not too often) I thought these women were living under extremely harsh conditions, but I soon found out that they actually didn´t have it too bad compared to the next set of ladies we were to visit.
Over the next few days we spent time with women living in an even more rural and impoverished area of Granada called El Pantanal (means swampy area) (trust me they were´nt kidding!) These women live in little homes made out of sheets of tin with dirt floors and only a few of them have running water. I never asked about the toilet situation (I tried to not drink water, so I didn´t have to ask, which is hard to do in sweltering heat/humidity) Each one of us was assigned a woman and we were to spend the day shadowing them and jotting down everything they did. My host was named Kenia and she was 31 with three children ages 10, 6, and 1. I never met the oldest child (girl) because she´d gone to live in town with Grandma (I can´t imagine not having my child with me) that left her with the 6 yr. old daughter and the little boy( a handfull) Thier home was the size of half my garage. I need to add that my garage at its messiest is nicer than her living area! In this tiny oven of a home she has a little fridge, a small stove (not sure either function) a little area to wash dishes and bodies and a sleeping area ( the little sleeps in a hamock in the middle of the room) Her husband abandoned her (sadly way too common here : ( She rescued her oldest daughter from being donated to the church, because the baby´s mom (her 15 yr. old cousin) couldn´t raise her. Kenia is a sweet woman who is overwhelmed (and who wouldn´t) and dealing with depression (she didn´t even know what she felt had a name) It shamed me to realize that no matter what curve balls life has dealt me I´ve always had resources available to me. I never had to make a go of it by myself. There were agencies I could apply to, friends to turn to, my church family ect. She does not have any of this, but the saddest part is that she feels God is about religion and that religion has done nothing but oppress her. It´s all she´s ever known. I shared my story with her (yes, I was with her all day) and I told her about the God I know and love and long for her to get aquainted with. No, she did not break down and accept Christ (it doesn´t always work this way ) but the seed was planted. I hope to keep in touch with her and am trying to find a way to get mail/packages to her to show her Gods provision for her. Anywho, long story shortened ( I really did try ) I walked away humbled at all I have been blessed with. I lay in my bed that night thinking of Kenia and her children in their cramped sweltering shack out in the middle of no where and whispered a prayer to God. Please Lord, take good care of all of them and whisper your soothing love over them.

Okie dokie, when last I posted I was still in Chicago and way too much has happened since then. I´ve now been away from home for twenty two days and counting and I miss my family and friends a lot. I´ll do a quick synopsis of the most intersting things that have transpired thus far (wow, that sounds way too educated!)Here goes:
Arrived in Managua and traveled to Granada through a torrential down pour. It looked like we were going to be washed away but our driver said "Oh that´s just our afternoon rain". Anywho, I spent two days in Granada with my friends host family and we were off to Costa Rica. Our bus driver failed to let us know when we reached our destination of Liberia(no, not the frozen tundra) and we almost went all the way to San Jose. Luckily a girl that lived there clued us in. The bus driver the peachy guy he is dropped us off literally in the middle of the busiest intersection in the entire town(way to go dude, get the tourists killed!) By now you get the picture so I´m going to speed things up a little so hang on.
We asked around about how to get to Monte Verde which is an amazing canopy forest in the mountains of CR. Lesson number one, never trust what one person tells you. Ask at least six and see which answer pops up the most. First of all bus schedules or bus stops do not exist. Seriously, I don´t how people get around here. Long story short it took a bus, taxi and old school bus to get us up the windy topsy turvy mountain. I don´t know how the cows(which have the cutest long ears) hang on and don´t fall off while they´re grazing. I found that people live along the way and use the bus as a sort of parcel, letter and message delivery system. Pretty innovative. Sorry I digress, Í´ll put the pedal to the medal and speed up. Here´s what the bus ride up the mountain included. Shoulders hunched because there were too many people to sit normally, a marathon smooch session in the seat behind me(snuck a photo hee hee) by an old toothless guy with a much younger girl(ewww) a weird guy who chose to stand in the aisle and place his sorry hind end(not a nice one by the way) in my friends face, bouncing up and down so hard I almost hit my head and then almost fell out of my seat´(didn´t know you could get sea sick this way) yes indeedy folks all this included in the bus fare! Wow , what a deal.
Long story short had a blast in the beautiful mountains, zip lined 13 cables of canopy, jumped off the Tarzan swing(sung The greatest young lady on the flying trapeze song) after I quit screaming. Visited an outdoor frog museum by flashlight(amazing little critters), danced with the butterflys (ok they were airborne and I wasn´t, darned gravity) stayed at the cutest hostel (my 1st) and had an all round great time.
Next leg of the trip places me back in Granada after experiencing the tortures of customs and immigration from both CR and Nicaragua borders. It turns out being Latin American tends to work against me with them. My friend had no prob at all, but me no way. It was a literal inquisition every time. Sheesh, give the girl a break I say! Oops sorry, going below the speed limit again, I´ll speed up. A quick list of the major things. Read Freddy? Ok here we go. Got to meet my host family, got semi mugged(I´m ok!) got moved to another fam(they´re great) dying of humid hot hot weather(yes I know you are too, but you have a/c) legs are tenderized by bugs(thank you malaria pills)walk to class every morning to find goats, horses, bulls and lots of other critters mosying along the road. I even had one that was working on getting a pooper out and he had the funniest look on his face. Since I´m bilingual I´ll translate it for you. Fido was clearly saying "Hello, I´m working on this, can I have some privacy please?) I wish I could take photos but walking around with a camera will only invite more unwanted attention, as if I haven´t already had enough. So suffice it to say I´ve already visited lots of other places and seen many crazy things but seriousley my dear friends(yes, that means all five of you) things here are hard.
Life here is very difficult. It´s hot, loud, dirty and smelly and it´s truly the best example I´ve seen up to this point of survival of the fittest. I cannot judge people for the choices they make(stealing my backpack off my back, trying to steal my camera from my hand) because I don´t know what I would do if my children were going hungry and shoeless. All I can say it that I give people here lots of credit for getting out of bed every morning and loving each other the way they do. My question is How do you dream, how do you hope? I thank God that he placed me where he did in the world, my own little heaven. I´m grateful that my children have what they do and I choose to believe that God wants to show me a whole lot more while I´m here. I love you guys and I send you a great big hug!