Me no gusta mucho lluvia

Have I mentioned it rains a lot here? The first few days it was sunny until around 5 when the dense cumulus clouds that had been assembling unnoticed arround the perimiter of an otherwise clear sky would launch their attack, and joining forces pelt the unsuspecting city below. Although considering it happened every day "unsuspecting" is perhaps not the right term. In any regards it was tolorable because it usually came around the time my day was winding down anyway. Monday the rain started earlier- around lunch time. The second half of my class proved difficult as the rain on the tin roof drowned out much of the conversations my teacher and I attempted to have. Yesterday the rain started before I woke up and never stopped- in fact it only intensifed as the day went on until around four pm it built into a creshendo of a downpour that left me unable to hear anything my teacher said at all. We gave up on lessons and instead attempted conversations about favorite foods "¿la comedia favorita?" (where I attempted to explain Sushi "uh...pescado y arros y...uh...seaweed? Seaweed? Um...plantas de Oceano?"), Halloween (where I explained the phenomenon of "sexy" constumes. "En Estados Unidos las sinoritas gusta...sexy..uh...constumes...sexy enfierma...sexy policia...sexy mariposa...") and box vs. bottled wine. Evidently in Guatemala boxed wine is considered equally good as bottled wine.

Anyway...Five rolled around and so I bundled up in my rain jacket and braved the streets. One block away I came across a complication. The street was more river than road. A brown river coursed through the street carring with it neumerous bits of trash which has previously occupied the nooks and cranies between the cobblestones. I stood on the sidewalk- rain thundering against my hood- contemplating the inevitable cross. I was in flip flops, my pants already hiked up to accomodate for the flooded ground- my feet couldn´t get any more wet. However the idea of wading through the river of brown sludge and trash was nauseating. Finally, after several of my fellow students had gathered along the sidewalk to ponder the same problem, I decided to just do it. Gross. Gross. Gross. But I made it home.

My shower isn´t hot, my room has no heat, and in Guatemala dinner is not a warm meal. Thus after dinner, clad in hoodie and yoga pants I curled up into my twin bed, before 9 yet again, and read until I passed out.

However, today it is sunny and beautiful. With all that cloud cover I forgot there was a volcano towering above the town.