Its Raining Men!

June 7th

Just kidding...but it is raining...a lot. It is officially the raining season. The rain falls hard off and on today, with thunder rumbling not too far away. I sit in the living room, enjoying hte cool breeze that is a stranger to the department of Chinandega. Last night I even slept in long pants and socks...and I was not sweating. This is something I had not experienced yet here in Nica. As I sit in the house with my host sister and mother, the rain continues to fall and the street begins to fill with water. It has been raining hard for about 40 minutes now. There is a dog standing on an island of dry land in the middle of the street. On both sides, where the street dips down, the water reaches half-way to my knees and has a current strong enough to carry a bottle or stick from one end of the street to the other. People bike by in bright yellow ponchos and walk with umbrellas. I half expect someone to float by in a rubber raft, but this does not happen. I am still waiting. In some places the water has risen over the curb, but it does not flow over into our house. Our hallway though, is full of buckets catching rain water from the many holes in the roof. My host family just puts the buckets where they need to be and go back to their novela-this is normal for them. For me though, the rain filled street and the way Corinto is transformed, still intrigues me. I could stand out on our covered patio and watch the rain, the running river our street has become and the people going by, for hours. My heart does go out though, to the poor dog, still standing on the island, just waiting for his home to return to normal.