Finally the rains have arrived. After going through some of the driest 6 months I have ever experienced, of everything in my house being covered with a layer of dust only seconds after dusting and hot days with sweaty nights. This is now a time of fruits so succulent that juice runs down your chin. All of the mountains transform from a distressing brown to a lavish green. It was the equivalent of winter for foliage. In the past 6 months it rained maybe 3 times. The colors of blooming trees are astonishing and almost counterfeit looking. I have been waiting for this time for quite a while. I have so been looking forward to cloudy days, cooler days and chilly nights. Being a Chicago native I hate myself for wishing it were cold and gloomy, but I have learned to live with myself.
Unfortunately I have found myself in a situation where I just can not win. Since the rains have begun it has rarely stopped raining. Like the first snow it is a magical time. Everything looks beautiful. Also like snow though it becomes quite a nuisance. When it rains here there are two ways in which it likes to present itself. The first is a torrential downpour where water leaks through walls, roofs and floods any possible walking path. Typically it is short lived. Umbrellas are little match for this because it comes down at all angles leaving your top half only slightly saturated while your bottom half resembles stepping out of a pool. The other way is a slow steady rain that lasts all day. This is annoying too in that you never catch a break, when dashing from place to place, without getting soaked, unless it becomes second nature to dress in plastic in the morning.
This is the season for mud. My backyard is basically a mud wrestling pit. I would not have any problem with this if I did not have to walk through this when going from room to room, since that is how my house is designed. I had thought that I was a genius in paying the neighborhood kids to collect rocks and make me a walking path. Well I did not take into account that this path would soon sink into the mud, apparently rocks do not float in mud, who knew? So I am back to square one and track mud into every room in my house. Also while walking I have had to put away my sandals. As I walk around town it is impossible to avoid mud pits. As you walk through this it covers your bare foot and squishes up through your toes. I could normally live with this if I didn’t think about what percent of that mud is horse, cow and dog feces. “Serenity Now”
Bugs! Well since the ants have been displaced by water filled tunnels they have joined my living quarters in mass. I have recently been introduced to an ant the size of a finger. It was moving rocks I might have considered skipping in a lake. There are also flying insects that look like ants with wings that come in swarms at night. They are attracted to the lights so the only way to avoid having a shower of flying ants is to sit in complete darkness. Mosquitoes have gotten much worse and have defeated me by confining my time at home under a mosquito net. “Serenity Now”
Teaching will become more difficult as well. Since most of my students come from other communities by bike, they chose not to make the hour journey through waterfalls. The ones who do come must strain to hear my screaming as the rain pounds against the tin roof. I am looking forward to my trips to rural communities in the back of a pickup truck and showing up looking as if I swam there with my clothes on. “Serenity Now”
