HELLO rainy season.

Rainy season has officially begun. In fact, it hasn´t stopped downpouring with the exception of 5 minutes here and there for the past 2 days. It rained so hard yesterday that SCHOOL WAS CANCELED. That is not a joke. It rains here for 6 months out of the year, but yesterday it warranted canceling school. Hmm. And I´d thought I´d seen it all in terms of excuses to cancel class. Wrong. The best part is that no one thought to let me know before I trudged out in the rain to walk to school. I put on my hat, raincoat and shoved my bag underneath that coat so it wouldn´t get soaked. 10 minutes later I arrived at school, soaked through to my underwear, at the time when I usually have class to find the teachers sitting in the teachers´ lounge doing nothing and no students in sight. Apparently when it rains really hard the kids don´t show up (some claim their parents won´t allow them to leave the house) because a lot of them have to walk from somewhat far away towns and would arrive soaked. I´m not entirely sure what the solution to this is since it will be raining pretty consistently, or so I imagine, until November. We´ll see.

I haven´t decided yet if I prefer sweating all day long during the dry season or not being able to go anywhere without getting soaked during the wet season. My jeans and sneakers are still soaked through from yesterday morning and are showing no signs of drying in the near future. I haven´t figured out what´s going to happen with the laundry situation either. I can hang my clothes up in my room to dry but only after they´ve dried partially outside so I don´t flood the floors, which won´t happen if it never stops raining. But now it´s really damp and moist inside too with all the rain so it´ll take several days for it all to dry in my room. I´m sure I´ll figure something out in the next few days since the rain is sure to keep up and my pile of dirty clothes is stacking up.

In other news:
-Some family from Managua brought us a kitten to kill the mice (He´s already killed one). His name is ¨Chele¨ which is what they call people with light skin (he´s white and orange).

-I saw someone with a t-shirt from Joe´s Crab Shack the other day. It didn´t say where the restaurant was located, so I just assumed it was Maryland.

-My grandmother and I stole some limones dulces (sweet lemons--cross between an orange and a lemon) from the abandoned yard across the street. My mom told us we were going to get diarrhea from them because they were stolen.

-I´ve implemented assigned seats, a warning system and started giving out stickers to kids with good behavior in my 6th grade class. Results have been incredible and have made the class so much more enjoyable!

-A neighbor and family member left for Costa Rica to work with her husband and left her 3 year old son with us. The 14 year old son pretty much lives on his own and (due to the lack of parents and guidance) is doing poorly in school and has been getting into drugs. Apparently she´s not coming back until December! And I´m not sure if that´s just to visit for Christmas only to return to Costa Rica or if it´s to stay and actually raise her own children...hopefully the latter though I sort of doubt it.

-My mom has converted to gringa guacamole. She´s made it a few times now with my recipe instead of hers!

-I´m officially coming home during our mid-semester vacation. June 28-July 7. I can´t wait!!

Not so fast...

Well, I spoke too soon. Monday was a half day of school because of some meeting that the teachers absolutely needed to hold. Tuesday was a normal, complete day of class (though I guess it´s more normal to miss class than have it). Wednesday was the Mayor´s birthday, and since all of the teachers are really Sandinista like the mayor, they had to celebrate for him at school...another half day of class. Today is the 31st anniversary of my town´s ¨liberation,¨ a.k.a. when the Sandinista´s took over, so there´s no school. And tomorrow, since the kids probably wouldn´t show up since it´s Friday and they didn´t go to school on Thursday, there´s supposedly a meeting, and no school. What a joke.

In other news, some relatives of my host family who live in Managua brough us a kitten. We named it Chele, which is what they call people with white/light skin because he´s white and orange.

Back to work

Matiguas was a blast! I left a very unproductive (as usual) TEPCE early on Friday and got to Matiguas around 3pm. We woke up at 5am the next morning to go to Jocelyn´s family´s farm where we milked cows, rode horses and herded cows! We ate lots of delicious chocolate cake that they make at a bakery nearby her house and went out dancing Saturday night. Sunday we went to a swimming hole called ¨Agua Fria¨ (Cold Water) and amazingly survived the bumpy trip driven by a crazy German guy in his ancient, falling apart car, who works with Jocelyn´s family. Monday morning I bought cuajada (a type of cheese) to bring back to my family. It was a really fun trip and nice to see Jocelyn and Julie. I was still really happy to get back to my family, my mom´s food and my bed (and mosquito net!).

Monday night I resumed my normal work schedule with my community class and Tuesday we finally started up with classes again in the high school, though we´ve already missed some English classes for meetings and doctor´s appointments. I don´t think we´ve ever had a complete week of class without interruption.

Other than that, not much else is new. My mom killed a gigantic spider for my last night that I found in my room. Since it´s been starting to rain all of the animals are coming out of the walls or wherever it was that they were living peacefully without bothering us. I recently found a gigantic colony of ants (huge ones, and some with wings) living in the top of the tank to my toilet, which is now cleaned out and securely sealed shut.

Saturday I have a meeting with the other nearby PCVs in Masachapa, a beach town in the department of Managua. ´Til next time!