Getting wet

So, my last post went up when I was taking my first vacation in Panama. It was a blast, more to come soon on that. After that I spent five days in San José for my mid-service training, which was a great chance to see everyone from my group, share successes and challenges, and learn some new things. After that, the plan was to come home, relax, and get up some blogs about Panama. Well, the rain had another idea.

Heavy rains in the mountains combined with heavy rains in the area where I live, and the biggest flood I've seen yet came to town. When I returned from training, the main bridge to the side of town I live on was out, meaning that school was out as well-the pedestrian bridge, which is much higher, was still well above the water. Everything seemed fairly okay (the bridge floods every month or so) when I went to bed, but I did notice that family I live with was up super late. The next morning, the family I rent from woke me up and suggested I start to put everything that was on the floor or low shelves onto my desk, shelves, and bed. Coincidentally, one of my two bosses happened to be in town for a meeting with the teachers I and other volunteers work with. Due to the flood, this meeting didn't really happen, but he was concerned about me, so he took a raft over to my side of town, checked out the flooding, and he suggested I get out of dodge for a bit. I left just as the water crossed the doorway into my room. So, I spent two delightful days with Megon and Kevin, a couple near me, and even got to see Megon's elementary school choir sing at a Christmas festival (which included lots of tasty tamales as well!).

(if you look closely, you can see a brown barn on the other side of the where the road and bridge usually are)

To further delay these posts, upon return to my house, everything was fine, besides some water stains on the wall and doors (water got to 14 or 15 inches in my room (.38 meters)), yet, the Internet wasn't working. So, after some wire checking and waiting for the family to call the phone company, the Internet finally got working the other day, so expect the posts to start coming. Enjoy the pictures-the one at the top is my house (when I left it), the one below is the road out of town-it got in on the flooding as well!