Down Came the Rain

The rainy season has started. So far it has been really nice... the rain cools everything down (it was only 76 this morning--I have been tempted at least twice to put on a long sleeve shirt) and it has been raining mostly in the evenings and nights. The rain here is really hard; literally when it rains it pours. The rain sounds even more intense as it falls on my family´s zinc roof. There have been several times where it´s just impossible to have a conversation or hear the TV because the rain is so loud, so we mostly just sit quietly in the living room shaking our heads in disbelief of how hard the rain is falling. Last night it rained for most of the night and is still drizzly now, so this could be the transition from when the rain is nice in the evenings to when it´s out of control. Paul´s host mom was telling us that last year it rained one time for 20 days without stopping. I guess I´ll worry about that when it gets here, because I like it a lot right now.

Otherwise, things are going very well. The food my mom makes is still awesome and I think my Spanish is making slow yet steady progress. We´re getting busier with our various projects that are going on (we have a youth group in our communities, we are beginning to co-teach classes at the high schools in our towns, and we have our language lessons) and I´m really pleased with my progress in all of those. I plan to post a longer entry (with pictures, I hope) about my youth group and our project, so stay tuned for that. Until then, please keep e-mailing and commenting to say hello!

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Like traveling back in time

Yesterday a group of us had to go to Managua to observe classes at one of the universities and a few of us decided to stay in town for a little while and for a lot of reasons we didn't make it back home until 7:30 (after dark). Even though I told my host mom that Holly and I might be gone all day we got a stern talking to when we got home. On one hand it is really great to know that my host family is worrying about us, but at the same time I haven't been treated like a little kid for a long time and it's really strange. My mom even threatened half-jokingly to spank us like niños.

I don't know if this is related or not, but this morning my host mom came into my room and looked pretty dismayed at all of the books, backpacks, and clothes strewn about and told me to clean my room today, and I didn't get the impression that there's any flexibility in that request.

Ok, I need to go because my parents told me that if I don't study this afternoon for my big algebra test, I'll be grounded for the whole week and won't even get to go to the big pep rally for the football game!

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