And So It Began To Rain

Costa Rica consists of two seasons; the middle of December thru April is summer or the dry season and May thru the middle of December is winter or the rainy season. During winter, the rainy season, it rains every afternoon for at least 3 or 4 hours. By October it's common to have rain all day and for several days straight.

As it likes to happen the torrential rain starts just a few minutes before it's time for me to leave school and head home. Today's rain was literally coming in sideways. This is always bad because it's impossible to stay dry due to the angle your umbrella has to be. (Trust me, I am at the low-advance level of a professional umbrella user - It's tricky.)

As I walk my 8 minutes home, my mesh tennis shoes begin to fill up with water and my rolled-up pant legs are filling up with water as well, in the cuffs! I was wishing that I didn't have my books so I could just forego the umbrella all together. I finally got home dripping of water.

BUT the fun doesn't stop there (otherwise it wouldn't be a true Costa Rican story.) Due to home my apartment is made and how it sits in the carport of a tico family; it's prone to rain problems. If it's a torrential downpour (like today) and if the rain is angled in the perfect direction (like today) then the rain likes to visit me through the 1/2 inch to 1 inch gap under my front door. (I found this out last week!)

So today it was unavoidable, my friend the flood was coming over for lunch. Thankfully the tiny semi-automatic washer I have comes in handy. It has it's own little part to put clothes in to spin dry. So it becomes very useful when I only have four towels to dry up the flood. Oh wait that's not all to this story.

My laundry room has given me much grief with rain and now it's much better until all the ingredients come together so perfectly, like today. Because it is a laundry room and ticos aren't fans of dryers (they are so expensive to run) there is a hole in the wall where air and sunlight can come in to dry the clothes. So once again one of my towels had to soak up the minor flooding in the back.

Let's go back to the kitchen where the front door is. My apartment is not the best constructed place, and there are several cracks in the wall and it so happens that in two other places the rain decided to enter in through these cracks and through the molding of the corners of the ceiling; which took up the other two towels.

At least the mopping in the kitchen area will be taken care of today! I'm just a tad worried about how my apartment will fair while I'm back in the states for 6 1/2 weeks...The joys of living in Costa Rica. One can't help but laugh. Otherwise you'll be a pretty unhappy person throughout winter here!