Hi there,
It's been more than a month, so I guess it is time. I am about to go on vacation to Guatemala for a wedding and visit some friends in Honduras as well, so if I don't get this off today, could be another month. The vacation in Guatemala/Honduras should be good, and cheap.
Well, it was so hot... What can I say? It is hot here and seems to get hotter all the time. The other day I was cooking french toast for breakfast, (what a surprise) and got the butter out and put it on the counter. Usually, by the time I have made 5 or 6 french toast, the butter is getting soft and needs to get back into the fridge... However, this day, the butter was so soft that when I picked it up it started to escape over the side of the wax paper, i.e. it was in a liquid state. Yikes! I managed to rescue a portion of it and store it in the fridge for safe keeping, but that day I realised, yes it is getting pretty hot. For those that need numbers, over the last while numbers like 40, 41 degrees have been common, combined with the humidity - it feels oppressive the heat.
A lot of people here sleep with a fan or air conditioning. I don't. However, lately I have been forced to bring the fan into the bedroom, otherwise it gets too uncomfortable... I haven't really been sleeping well. The dark circles under my eyes just keep getting darker.
Fortunately, they say the rains are going to come early this year - maybe early this month and it will get a bit hotter and muggier but then it will cool off.
Did I mention the dust problem that goes hand in hand with the heat here? It is super dry, if not the air, then at least the ground and so... we have dust. This is the reason many people water their sidewalks and dirt patches - to keep the dust down. Another seemingly odd thing (to a foreigner) is the sweeping of the dirt patches - again to gather the loose dust so there is less to go into the air...
The only real topic of conversation these days is the weather. It's like the heat saps the creativity from the people. A typical conversation. "Hot, isn't it?", "Yep.", "Can hardly stand it.", "Yeah, it's too much." and so on. Not very exciting. So, I continue the trend, by sharing the weather report with you. Of course, those in Canada that were mentioning that there is still snow can complain, if they like.
Our workshop in Matagalpa was a good one (and we have another this week). It was better planned than usual and I even got to put my 2 cents in a few times on little things and feel like I had a use for being there other than just taking notes.
We also have the youth group every second Saturday now and it is going really well. The youth really enjoy the sessions and are keen to continue. Unfortunately I will miss the next two as I will be in Guatemala.
I went during Easter Week to San Jose and Heredia to visit some friends for a couple of days. It was a nice relaxing visit. Most people were at the beach, but that was ok, in some ways it was nicer to have more time with fewer people. I was good and rested, I recall, then came back with a cold and to the heat and have been tired ever since, I think.
Tried to visit a project in Santa Rosa during Easter Week, but the buses were still on holiday schedule. So I got within 20km, after 4 hours, and then discovered there was no bus. Oops. So I came back home. Then I tried the next week and the bus was apparently broken down or something. So finally I got there on Thursday this week, on Labour Day.
Generally life is good. What more can I say? I think that's enough for today...
Take care, un abrazo,
Rob