Rain, Rain and Then a Little More Rain...

On a Sunday night a few weeks back, we went to sleep like on any normal night. Like many nights during this season, I wake to the sound of rain on our roof. Maybe some of you are imagining the tranquil sound of the rain pitter-pattering across your roof. Scratch that from your mind. I look up from my bed and see a metal roof, the same metal roof that the rain is pouring on outside.

There is nothing tranquil about this, the slightest rain and Nunu and I have to yell at each other even if we are right next to each other. It's like living in a drum and some kid is constantly pounding on it.

Sleep comes and goes, but even Nunu who can sleep through the light rain is waking up to the sound. I wear headphones as often as I can but even my ears start to hurt from those. I won't painstakingly take you through each day, but basically it rains and pours for 3 days. And in those 3 days there are only short spans where there is no rain. Each time I hear the sound let up, I think to myself, “The rain is FINALLY over.”And I go back to what I'm doing, but then I hear it... rain on the ground, slowly coming toward our house... yes I can hear it, as it slowly creeps it's way over our house.

Tuesday is the third night of this and by then, we are both so exhausted we sleep.

Stream running past front porch.

Post rain picture.

On Wednesday it's still raining, and at this point the noise is really starting to get to me. I forget what silence sounds like and as an introvert, I treasure silence! I keep reminding myself it's just rain, you have a good (loud) roof over your head... there are others around who probably don't even have that much. Have I ever mentioned it's really hard to have a pitty-party for oneself while living in a 3^rd world country... well it is. Others' reality is always a slap to the face, and usually a much needed one =)

So Wednesday the power goes out. Can I have a pitty-party now? Nope because some of our neighbors have never had electricity.

I watch TV shows on my laptop, headphones are not optional, as you can't hear the laptop without them. I watch as my battery get lower and lower. But losing power for hours at a time is so common, I keep watching. 35% it's gotta come back on anytime now, 27% just one more show, 22% it's 8:30pm for sure by 9:00 it will be back on, 15% uh-oh well I'll just finish this show, 6% shows over... but the power should be back on in the next hour or so, I mean it's already been out for 8 hours.

We got to bed, no power. So we sleep with our windows open and risk the rain coming in through our windows. I run my little battery operated fans and we actually sleep really well, besides the constant drumming!

Thursday goes by very similarly, still no power. Nunu studies at night. I light the 4 candles that we have, turn on this little solar lamp from the Dollar Tree and put on my head lamp. I read. But I can't tell you how many times I thought Nunu was home or someone was at the door. The rain just throws sounds all over the place, it takes a lot to just read and not get up every time you hear something.

Dollar Tree find! Could use a few more of them, if you
see them and buy me some, I'll even pay you back =)

By Friday at noon when we still have no power (48 hours now), I text a friend who lives just outside of town and ask if I can sleep on her couch for the night. She kindly picks me up after work. And I'm treated to a night of sitting on a couch watching television! Might not sound like much to you, but we only have our bed and kitchen table chairs... so the couch is a nice change!

I open my computer to check email and such for the first time in 2 days, but my computer won't turn on. So I leave it charging. I've also brought some other electronics to charge. When Nunu gets home from school that night he texts me to say the power is on! Go figure.

When I return home on Saturday afternoon, the power is back off... but this time only for a few hours. But it's still raining.

In the end it rained for just about 6 days straight. And our town doesn't have any sort of sewage system, so whatever water is on the ground makes it's way to the lowest point. Lucky we are fairly high up, so we have a stream going through our yard for the week. Pipes are uncovered as our sand washes away with the rain.

My friend Lyssandra and I drove around to see the damage. Being a coastal community we have a road that runs along the ocean. In one area a 20 foot section was washed away and replaced by a rushing river that was probably 5 feet deep.

View from "road" out to ocean.

View from same spot in the other direction.

The pile of rocks left in the road for "repairing" the street.
I'm curious to see just what they do.

View away from ocean. Looks like someone had started
building a home. This is what's left of the foundation.

The 2 pipes (blue top, black bottom) used to be underground
probably running along the edge of the road. 

Another part of the road sort of fell, not quite into the ocean... but it's on its way there. So now this section of road can only take one car at a time. But don't worry too much about the roads, crews will be out to fill them with dirt in a day or so, and that will last, right?

View of the ocean from the car. You can see lots of debris
and how the rain has eroded the ground... and road. 

A few feet further down you can see the pavement is still
there, just the ground underneath is gone. Also the pile of
dirt on the right will be used to fill this space, so 2 cars can fit.

Prayer Requests:
- My computer still isn't working and so I'm sharing Nunu's with him (which he uses it a lot for school) and our office computer with our staff (so 5 of us are using it). So some days I don't have access to a computer. In addition to the majority of what I do for work being on the computer, it's also was my source for TV and learning Portuguese, so it's been frustrating to say the least. So prayers for sanity.
- Pray for all those affected by the rain, as a mud house can only withstand so much rain. 
- I will be leaving Moz in about 5 weeks and so I'm starting to feel a little overwhelmed by what I still need and want to do for Dream Project.

If You Can't Take the Heat...

A few Saturdays ago I was supposed to meet with Traduzire about something. But he needed to cook in the Kitchen, so I decided to join him to see what it's like cooking in there.

We usually use charcoal to cook, but not the nice little squares we have in the states. They are pre-burned pieces of wood. Because of the rain, we have had a real hard time keeping the charcoal dry and so on this day we were using some broken up sticks.

Lighting the fire. It's very common to use plastic to start a fire, not paper.

The supplies for todays meal... rice and beans.

Traduzire was very annoyed with the younger boys because he didn't think the pans were cleaned good enough. And he wasn't talking about the inside, rather the outside is covered in soot. So he grabbed a scoop of dirt to start scrubbing the outside of the pan. I can't tell you how many times I just feel like I"m camping. By now it's about 10:00 and I kept saying, "shouldn't we start the beans, don't beans take forever to cook."

Cleaning the pan.

The dirt is getting the soot off.

The smoke can be a bit unbearable,
especially with wet wood. 

Before we can wash the beans, we have to clean them and pick out any bad beans. Traduzire is in no hurry, but it's not 10:30 and I'm wondering if we will EVER eat lunch today!

Finally! The beans make it into the pot!

Now it's time to clean the rice.

Similar to the beans we pick out anything weird, including some dirt.

Putting the rice into the pot.

The rice cooks so much faster than the
beans. It's lots of rice and hard to stir.

Round 1 of the beans is finally done! My guess is it's 1:00 or so and I'm beyond hungry! Yet no one complains and comes in asking, "where is lunch?!"Round 1 of the beans is mostly about getting them soft. Now we are onto round 2 which is mostly about getting them to taste good and also a little softer. The flavor comes from a common receipt here, as it's used for making spaghetti and I think even chicken. You put oil in the bottom of a pan and add in potatoes, onions and garlic. After those simmer for a bit, you add in tomato paste and let that simmer some more. Now comes the secret ingredient, Benny (it's a strong chicken stock seasoning). Finally you add the beans and some bean water back in and let it cook for another hour or so!

A pot full of beans and paper pot holders!

In go the potatoes and onions.

Tomato Paste

Stir, stir, stir. 

This is how hungry I feel =)

Having a little fun in the hot sweaty Kitchen.

Clearly, I have thought him well.

The secret ingredient!

Yum! Beans made well are one of my favorite here.

Dishing out lunch. Rice first. 

The pup eats whatever we eat, no special dog food here. 

Beans piping hot off the stove. 

Beans on top, making sure everyone gets some potatoes and juice.

FINALLY DONE!!

To the table and into happy bellies @ 2:30!

Helping cook in the Kitchen is something I've always wanted to do. While Traduzire did most of the work, I promise I helped more than the pictures suggest =) I've always respected those who work in the Kitchen and even been okay with them laying down in between meals. But actually getting to do, I'm not sure what to say other than I'm glad I finally got to see what goes into preparing such a big meal first hand and I'm glad that Traduzire was my teacher.