मिशन accomplished

working until dark on a night when thick mist and wind transformed the landscape into something out of nightmares.....yet the parrots still squawk and the congus monkey still howl.----- with Brigetthe´s help the the mural is done and is a masterpiece of love and energy and hope.. if i were a techie i would attach a photo....it is 16 x 10 and full of life of nic. oxen, textures of rainforest and fields of carrots, cabbage and corn....the sky is alive with stars and children dance and jump at play. horses and goats water and wind...all the textures of life are represented....so much fun. up and downt the ladder a thousand times a day mixing paint, imagining the work in my dreams...so saçd to finish but tomorrow i leave this moutain wild and return to managua for home... we´´ll meet francisco and javier for dinner...

today i went to the mçhome of the woman who made me the tortillas yesterdy. she cleans the clinic. in her dirt-mud really - floored home of 26 years.. with a corner buring wood and drying corn, with 15 chickens as guests and with her three daughters...red headed with freckles...we ate squas, fice and cheese in tin plates in a windowless shack....the kitten and dogs, one adorable grandchild and on fresh cotton tablecloth on a rough plank i dined on sumptuous food. they have NOTHING. it is so wet tonight, and my clotyhes feel wet and they live with this with no closets, so linens, they sleep in a hammock (tiny) and isaw one twin sized surface that may be a bed. no plumbing. no toilet. no latrine. they grow all that they eat, they have no electricity so at 6 when darkness comes...they are in the dark and wet and dankness. but the kids are so bright and clung to me at the mural project and proudly showed me the jumble of plants that make up their life and sustenance. the coffee i drank. the tortilla i ate, the beans i savored all were produced here. on her great grandmothers matate she ground the corn and it will be passed on to her daughter. this is poverty and thety have nothing. the pen i gave Kadkan was a treasure. pictures i copied to inspire my mural were treasurtees too.----they y have nothing.

i imagine our consumption compared to theirs... how can i comapoin about the rainfores diaappearing when my consumptioj in a moment surpasses their consumption in a year...is this poverty or living within our limits. remember these children being educated without books or paper or pens...perform better than our own US educated students-.-

the book i gave them with photos for my mural was handled likde a jewel.----had they ever seen a picture book before?
due to the holes in the recycled tin on her roof....the flooer was wet and with the huge rains of the past month icannot imagine the mysery - or is it misery when they have love and duties and survival together....i do not see these stick shacks as poverty any more...i cannot yet get my mind around what it really is...

a fascinating man met this A.M as i was loading my water filters into brigetthe´s truck.. had i done this any other day tghis trip our meeting would not have happened- i am all a flutter. we walk the same path but his is at a scale i cannot even fathom....with art, culture. environ,emnt and philanthropy we speak one language....miracles unfolding...we drove together to the clinic so he could see the mural as he is a painter of import in the U.S- it was hard to part...i wonder what the future will hold---but i am dizzy with feeling.