It’s raining… A LOT! The rainy season has kicked in and on some days the road to Las Mangas gets precariously flooded. Kids here have told Sandra that there has not been a single year without Gurauma staff being cut off the city for about a week. So they have to buy supplies in case that week is around the corner. The road is already pretty damaged by the water, but people drive on none the less.
Hurricane Mathew (I am not sure about the name) was not much of a hurricane for us, but we did have strong winds and a lot of rain, torrential rain. Have I mentioned that it rains a lot here, who would have thought : ) People do get a little scared here though when there are hurricane warnings, and you hear people talking about different intensity levels etc., and rightly so because hurricane Mitch for instance really destroyed large parts of the country in 1997.
Unfortunately the strong winds and rain also kept us from visiting Cayos Cochinos with Kaska on the weekend when she was here : ( which is an island range off the coast of La Ceiba where you can go snorkelling). Apart from the rain we were also limited in mobility by severe diarrhoea and in Sandra’s case high fever (which reached 39.4C° at one point). Kaska’s last weekend in Las Mangas was thus dominated by frequent visits to the bathroom and trying out different local remedies for diarrhoea (eg. drink lime juice). In my case the situation turned out to be a result of amoebas in my stomach, I have finally killed most of them with an antibiotic, I hope.
Last week was a little tough on me. Because I was ill, the amoebas were making me very tired and I didn’t feel so comfortable at the house where I live. It is a hotel, quite a lot of people who work there come and go, so it doesn’t feel very private, and I don’t know the family that well yet. But I still went to school and worked and so by the end of last week I was exhausted. I stayed at the Gurauma compound with Sandra for a couple of nights during the weekend to recover. There is still no internet there, but yesterday I found a way to use internet at my house with my mobile phone simcard for $0.50/24hours, and now that my laptop is fixed again after the virus I can use my own laptop with internet at home – quite a revolution!
One thing that really bothers me about the rain is that the humidity is all encompassing. Things get mouldy here very easily (eg. my toiletry bag – so disgusting, my backpack, my shoes…). Bedding smells of mould and of course the walls and ceilings have mouldy patches on them. Besides the fact that it is bad for your health, it’s just gross.
Although it rains every afternoon at the moment, we do have sunny spells and it got quite hot in town today, probably around 27C°, but in the mornings when the temperature drops to about 18C° people here start shivering and putting the heating on in the car, it’s quite entertaining.
Bueno, love to all of you and tell me how autumn is coming along!
Besitos xxxxxx
Chiara
PS: I’m sorry the picture is completely unrelated this time; it is of a teacher and a student at the Spanish School. The teacher is braiding the student’s hair at the school. Since my point-and-shoot camera got stolen I am much more limited in photo taking. I do not want to take my nice camera to anywhere, people will notice and claim it with a weapon.
