cloudy days and rainy walks

The furious downpours have taken some mercy on us. They are only in the afternoons now. Yesterday, there was a river gushing over the road at the dip in the entrance to our neighborhood. Tessa had to load abuncha Nica moms and kids into the micro to weigh it down before she could drive through so as not to get swept away. She said there were tree stumps and buckets and a telephone pole being swept by as she drove, with all of the moms and kids cheering her on. Meanwhile, I was at the house making lesson plans and taking pictures of the dogs. I was jealous of her adventure, so I offered to drop her off at the community an hour later, hoping to see some action. But we just got stuck for about 30 seconds in the mud, and the river wasn't nearly as dangerous-looking. I decided to turn around and go home because my hunger for adventure was getting risky. Tessa started to walk to music class, but then the buckets started, and Dane said there were no kids there, so we canceled. Excercise class was graced by a period of no rain, and we had a great time kicking and jumping to Shakira and yoga-ingto Ravi Shankar.

In other news, I acquired yet another electronic commitment that I will not be able to keep, but it should be really great until the buzz wears off. It's a daily photo journal, and the idea is to post one photo a day, taken that day. Having a camera with me makes me look at everything differently, and I like it. (Note: if you click the left side of the picture, it will take you to the previous day's entry, and right side goes to next day.)

i'ma whine for a sec, k?

it has been raining for three days straight. three days. sometimes there is an hour of respite, and then the sky starts spitting again, opens up and dumps buckets of water on us, spits, stops, buckets, spits, buckets... 72 hours. everything is muddy. the laundry won't dry. every paper is like cloth, limp and wimpy. we have found at least 3 leaks in our roof, but we can't have them repaired until this silliness stops. we've heard the entire month of october is one giant shower. there go the buckets again...

all i want is a hot bath!

Clowns, Scorpions, and Jesus

I am a terrible blogger lately! Apologies, especially for those of you who count on these entries to procrastinate at school and work. :) Here is a little taste of what's been going on...

Last week, we went to a fiesta that was held for no reason we could determine. Our Nica friend who works in the preschool in the municipal dump admitted that the purpose of the costumes and balloons and music and piñata was "para destraerlos" (to distract them). Little kids in costumes are always good for a laugh, and considering that the participants of the costume fun live below the extreme poverty line in a trash dump, creativity and resourcefulness combined to make some really cute and funny pictures.
See more here: http://flickr.com/photos/juliamariemills/sets/72157602220297723/

On Saturday night, we had a murder mystery party at the Manna house for our advanced English class and a few other Nica friends. Marcela was still on her visit home in the States, so the story was that we were on a cruise ship, and Marcela had been pushed overboard. Our students were charged with solving the mystery of her untimely death by questioning the characters present, which included:
The Merman in the cruise ship pool (Matt)
The Italian Supermodel (Tessa)
The Captain with a lisp (Dane)
The Lounge Singer (Erin)
The Castaway (our photographer-from-New-York visitor, Brian)
The International Beach Volleyball Champion (Geoff), and
The Narcoleptic Pirate (me)

We had a great time and after the mystery was solved and lots of great new vocabulary was learned (lounge singer, alibi, narcoleptic, etc.), we spent hours chatting in Spanglish over snacks and dancing to all kinds of world tunes, and by around 11 pm, nearly everyone ended up in the pool in their clothes. Even though lots of these people are in their twenties and in college, they still know how to act like kids and have a great time. Alan, one of our students, showed me and Geoff his scorpion tattoo and told us a Spanglish story about the time he almost died twice. One day, when he put on a pair of shorts, he felt a sharp pain followed by loss of feeling in his tongue and leg, which prompted his grandmother to ask if he had a scorpion in his shorts, to which he replied, "No, Granmother, I do not have one scorpion en mai charts." So she patted his leg to feel for foreign objects, and when she did, the scorpion stung him a second time. When he was finally taken to the hospital, his whole nervous system a mess, he was given an injection to which he had a severe allergic reaction. Obviously, he lived, but it was during this fiasco, Alan told us, through desperation and prayer, that he came to believe in Jesus sincerely, rather than superficially as he had before. To mark the significance of this event in his spiritual life, he got a tattoo on his left thigh where the scorpion stung him. He also got a tattoo on his right thigh of a heart with two pistols "because I like" and one on his ankle of an Aztec sun, Alan shrugs, smiles, and concedes "because I am crasy!" and jumps back into the pool, playfully taking an innocent bystander with him.