Women have to pee ALOT

We just got done with another team this week from New Hampshire

of three couples and five teens and we have to say that out of all the

teams we have had (college teams, youth groups, families, singles,

young, old, mother/daughter, construction) this team beat everyone

by far in the amount of bathroom breaks needed. And bathrooms

breaks were not an easy task on this particular trip because we took

this team to the rainforest for two days. Now the rainforest is about a

four and a half hour bus ride from the city and if any of you are

picturing a lush tropical vacation in a beautiful resort with refreshing

swimming pools and fruity drinks. . . you are wrong. The rainforest

is certainly beautiful but it is miles from a relaxing vacation in the

tropics. Think tiny hole in the wall restaurants, big spiders, invisible

bugs that bite you through your clothes,humidity so thick you feel

like you just stepped out of a steamy shower, no air conditioning

and, most importantly, a severe lack of convenient bathroom stops.

For your amusement here is the list of toilets we frequented along

the way: A pay per person stall along the road, a pay per toilet

paper stall at the checkpoint, a public restroom with a flooded floor

that required its users to dump a bucket of water down the toilet as

a way to flush, an open hole in the jungle, a river, the hotel

bathroom (not that bad except for a flooded floor) and last but not

least, a three stall bathroom with holes in the floor. Our team was

wonderful, though, in their acceptance of the lack of toilet seats

and air conditioning. While in the jungle we were able to varnish

and screen in the windows in one of our orphanages, visit with

the first completed orphanage and bring supplies for the parents

and donate radio equipment to one of the churches in the area to

broadcast Christian radio in the jungle. We also visited a monkey

park while there that allows you to sit and play with monkeys that

are being introduced back into the wild. They come up sit on your

lap, play with your hair and try to steal stuff from your pockets. A

great experience, i however, have done it enough times to not

want any monkeys hanging off me. i opted to stay on the bus with

the construction worker's wife and her sleeping baby. What we

quickly realized is that the monkeys liked to crawl through bus

windows. As the team made their way to the park area four

huge monkeys made their way towards the bus and we were

scrambling to shut all of the bus windows before they got to us.

We then spent a good forty five minutes in a stifling hot bus with

monkeys banging on the roof and hanging off the windows, trying

to get our attention and eyeing the bundle of bananas we had at

the front of the bus. With that wonderful description of what a trip to

the jungles of Bolivia entails, i am sure that no one is exactly

jumping to sign up for a trip but i do have to say that, while the

rainforest is personally one of my least favorite places visit here in

Bolivia,every time i get back i am so happy i went. Not many

people can say that they hiked through the rainforest, held

monkeys and swam in part of the Amazon river.