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.
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