I am so, so sick of the rain and the cold. It won't stop raining! We actually saw a very little bit of the sun this morning, which was exciting. I know it's rainy season, but I believe in the typical rainy season, it's more like last week or the week before. It's sunny in the morning, but it might rain at some p,oint in the afternoon or night or both. But when it's not raining, it's sunny. Now it's just pouring, day and night. I haven't seen rainstorms like this – outside of hurricanes in Florida – since I lived in Alabama and it would rain for a week straight, really heavy like this.
And I dread showers. The shower is decently hot, but not hot enough to make up for the fact that the bathroom is effectively outside and thus 50ish degrees. I've been taking showers in the evenings right before dinner and after salsa, which is fine except for the cold. I then crawl under the covers and have no interest in moving again. I haven't been out at night in days, because it's been raining and I don't want to get out from under the covers! Last night, I got under the covers while finishing my homework, and fell asleep with the light on, my jeans on, and my contacts in. on the bright side, I didn't get cold during the night. But I felt really bad because electricity is very expensive in this country.
Anyway, I haven't been up to much that's very interesting. Our activities keep getting canceled due to rain. Yesterday, my big accomplishment was mailing my friend's phone charger to him in Guatemala city. I went to the post office, where it turned out they don't sell boxes OR envelopes. So then I visited a couple of stores looking for an appropriate container, but apparently the concept of a 'padded envelope' doesn't exist in Guatemala. Finally I just bought two envelopes, and wrapped it twice. When I brought it back to the post office, the lady was somewhat confused that a gringa was sending something to guatemala city. “A guatemala?” she asked. To make her feel better, I also sent two post cards to the states. Anyway, hopefully it will get there okay.
Yesterday we also visited a women's domestic violence shelter. It's actually the only one in the entire country, and until a few years ago, it was the only one in all of Central America. Right now, there are about 35 or 36 people living there. The government doesn't give them any money, but they do send women their way. A lot of the “women” are actually just girls, some as young as 11 or 12. A lot of the really young ones were impregnated by their fathers. Abortion is illegal here. Technically, there is an exception for rape (or maybe just incest? I'm not sure), but apparently the process takes too long to be of any practical significance. Anyway, we bought them a bunch of fruit (which they don't get much of), and we hung out with some of the kids for a while. We sang them some kids' songs in English, and we even attempted (badly) to sing 'head and shoulders' en espanol, but we didn't do so well. It also doesn't rhyme in Spanish. The girls sang us a song, including the Barney song in Spanish.
Today we were supposed to go to Baul, which is a little park above Xela that's supposed to be cool. Unfortunately, the roads to get there are bad, so we can't go. I had wanted to leave Xela this weekend, but all of the teachers keep saying not to, that it's too dangerous, and that the roads are in too bad shape. So I guess I'm stuck in the city for another weekend, which only gives me like 2 or 3 more weekends to travel around the country! Argh. The rain is seriously starting to frustrate me. It's supposed to rain less in October, but it's almost October and so far it hasn't slowed down.
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