Loud rain.

I think I will start this post with some random accounts of things that have happened to me in the past few days. 


1. The other night I went to go pee before bed. I turned on the light, sat down, peed, and as I got up and turned to flush I see a giant cockroach (because small cockroaches don't exist in Guatemala) in the bowl very close to wear my butt was. Naturally, I jumped and freaked because I really dislike bugs and it was so close to my bum that the thought of it having the opportunity to crawl up my backside is very frightening to me. I flushed. Sorry cockroach. 


2. I have a mosquito net over my bed. It allows me to sleep peacefully in my bed without being eaten alive by mosquitoes and also prevents me from waking up with a spider on my head (close encounter already experienced). Well, that's what I thought at least until tonight when I got in my bed, tucked the net in around my bed, prepared to update my blog, and what do I find to my surprise? A mosquito in my net. Fail on the net. How did that happen? Saber, but I got it out and my net is working to its potential again.


So anyways, the rainy season has slowly crept in. Right now, it's not so bad. During the day it doesn't really rain, sometimes it's sunny sometimes it's cloudy but it's still a nice, warm temperature. Then in the late afternoon or later at night, it POURS. The torrential downpours here are intensely insane. I don't know if I have ever experienced anything like it. Also, I have a roof made solely of aluminum sheets. Here are the two lovely consequences of such: 1. When it is gorgeous and sunny outside my roof acts as an oven and heats my house up like no other. 2. When it downpours, it sounds so incredibly loud on my roof. No matter how loud I turn up my iTunes I can't hear a thing while my computer is on my lap. Headphones it is. But ya know what? In the end, I don't even really mind. I have my own lovely little space that is all my own so I can compromise.  


With the start of the rainy season also comes other things; some good, some not so good. Let's start with the good. There is water all the time! Hooray! I remember when I first got to site, I only had water early in the morning until about 8 am and then not until after about 5 pm. Now I have water all of the time and don't have to plan what time I can shower or wash dishes. The not so good part about the start of the rainy season? Because of all the new copious amounts of water coming through a lot of contamination that was sitting in rivers and immobile for awhile gets pushed through for the first time in months. What does that mean? Well, for one, it means that a lot of times when you turn the water on to fill the pila (stone sink thing every house in Guatemala has) the water is murky and brown. Yeah, sound gross? It kinda is. And there is no running it to see if it clears up because that is all there is. What can you do? Not drink it that's for sure. The other problem with all this newly moving water is that it leads to a lot of diarrhea in communities. Since the water is contaminated it is easy to somehow get it in your mouth and, hence, get sick. Fortunately, I hear this only lasts for the beginning of the rainy season so I guess we will see how long that just means.


Lastly, I want to mention how work is going. Work is going really well, I'm happy to say. Schools have surprisingly, and to my pleasure, been in session and I've been doing my visits. Today in particular I had a great visit. I went to one of my best schools, meaning the teachers are really motivated and the community is really supportive. I did my baseline survey to get an understanding of where the school currently stands. They don't have any water and right now collect rainwater to use for the school. Then I did a small workshop with the teachers training them on specifics of the program. Then I had the wonderful opportunity to meet with a good amount of the mothers of the students. The director of the school had scheduled a meeting with them to discuss some points she needed to address and to present me. It went well and they seemed really receptive of me. I'm excited because from what the director tells me, the women in the community, specifically these mothers, are very active in the community and like to work on projects and learn new things. One of my hopes is to work with a women's group here and I think these are just my ladies. I brought the idea up to them and that I would really love to work with them on projects, talks, activities, etc. every month and they were interested. My plan is to do my first activity with them next month on dental hygiene. I'm so excited! I will keep you all posted on how that goes. Side note on my trip to that school today. I got a ride with a teacher to and from the school today, which was nice or else it would have been a two hour walk. Well as we were going to the school I notice a dog running alongside us. Turns out, it was the teacher's dog that had gotten loose right before he left. The ride took about 20 minutes but as I said before it would have been two hours walking. That dog ran all the way to the school with us. He then proceeded to come into his classroom and lay down beside where he was teaching all day. Then, he ran back home along our side again. What a loyal pet! Not to mention that he has some great endurance. I thought it was really cute and funny. 


Anyways, so you can see that things are going pretty well right now and happily so. It's funny how in Guatemala you can have one really great week and then somehow get hit low the next week. But that's how things are here. I miss the beach at home yet there are still waves in my life in this aspect. Just gotta ride em out. I leave you with a quote from a book I once read called "Geography of Bliss" by Eric Weiner. "Periods of good fortune naturally alternate with periods of adversity, just as sunny days are interspersed with rainy ones." Mmm, ain't that the truth.