Masaya and la Lluvia

Hello everyone,
So i suppose I´ve fallen behind on the updates! Two big things have happened since my last post. 1) Day trip to Masaya and 2) the crazzzy rain.

Last Saturday Benny, Marissa, Jess and I decided to wake up at 4:30 and hitch a ride with a cousin of the family to Tipi Tapa where we would there catch a crowded and stuffy bus to Masaya, the market city! After a wander around the marked Benny and I decided to venture out and climbed a 2km mountain in 36 degrees weather. Are we crazy or what? I drank my weight in water, no joke. At the top of this mountain, called COYOTEPE btw, there lays one of the three Somozan prisons that the horrible dictator used to imprison Sandinistas during the revolution. This prison was used for unhumane acts of torture beyond comprehension up until the 1980s!! Let me tell you it was horrible. Benny and i went to the 1st and 2nd levels, the 2nd being pitch black. Torture rooms with blood still stained on the walls, it was so unbelievable I cant even describe it. What these people have lived through I can never know. There were scorpions, huge spiders and a heck of a lot of bats down there too. How exciting.... I actually am quite surprised at the calm and saving face kind of manner I had while down there.
I´ve still got quite the cold and am trying very very hard to get healthy. I had a bad experience last Saturday night with drinking untreated water too. So that didnt help situations. Felt as though I was going to die. Oi, not a fun night. I keep thinking I can drink the water but I really cant. From now on I have to chlorinate it with my drops or just buy bottles.
Ali makes me so happy, he can be quite the unruly monkey but when he sees me and squeals with many a SHARI SHARI my heart melts. He and I are quite the pair.

On to the rain situations! It was raining so hard the other day, I think it was Monday, that a stream built up in the street outside my house as deep as my knees with a violently rapid current. Garbage and childrens shoes wizzed by me standing out on the porch of the house. Cars were caught and had to remain stagnant as they couldnt move. The courtyard of the house was completely flooded. Flooded so badly that water was coming in to the house. I was soaking wet from running around the kitchen and dinning room with buckets to try and catch the water...of course to almost NO avail. Insane. Apparently its like this during the rain season. Monsoons. Ive never seen rain come down that hard that strong for that long. Samaria just looked at me and said, ¨All we can do is pray that it stops.¨ (In spanish of course.)

Boy oh boy am I in for an interesting three months. How does one get to their work placement in knee high rapid current? HOW????? They did NOT prepare me for this! I wish I could have taken pictures to show you guys but my camera was upstairs in my room beyond reach. I´ll keep it on my person for the next time, I assure you. You can´t believe what I am describing until you can see it for yourself. Amazing. Truly truly amazing.

until the next time,
xo
S