It’s raining pitchers: The good, the bad, the pathetic

Rainy season. It came almost 2 months early. Most people are rejoicing because there has been a pretty bad drought and residents in the capitol city have had water restrictions for months. But it totally caught me off guard, one day it’s dry, the next day you see the wrath of the gods. In Spanish you say, está lloviendo a cántaros, which literally means “it’s raining pitchers (of water)”, and may I just add that this makes a heck of a lot more sense than it’s raining cats and dogs. Anyways, the raindrops are massive, they’re like the size of a quarters when they land on you and then there is the lightning and the thunder loud enough to make you scream with fright like a 9 year old girl. So here are some of my pleasant and unfortunate experiences with this Honduras rain.

The good: Last Sunday was my first full weekend off since I arrived. I was initially disappointed to see the grey cloudy sky, but I shrugged it off. We had planned to go to La Tigra, a rainforest about 30 minutes away, but our plans got changed. Instead, I went to my friend’s house and hung out. As the sky gets darker and darker she asks if we still want to go for a hike, even though it’s about to rain. “Of course”, I reply, “Why wouldn’t we want to? Let’s have an adventure!” She looks at me like I’m crazy, but then her sister enthusiastically replies, “Yeah, let’s live a little”. Paola is outvoted, and so we set off on our adventure, with no umbrella of course. About 10 minutes in, it starts to rain. Then it starts to pour. Her neighbors are all huddled on their porches, looking at us with stares of disbelief. We giggle and frolic in the rain. I desperately try to protect my camera case, I wasn’t expecting it to rain this hard. I jam the case in my jean pocket. Pretty soon I’m completely soaked. My jeans must weigh at least 10 pounds, I feel my feet squishing in my borrowed tennis shoes. My mascara is no longer on my eyelashes but in an ugly little streak under my eyes. But it’s all good, no one’s complaining, we’re having a blast trekking through the forest. Who needs a rainforest when we have rain + a forest? We stop and take pictures and then my camera decides it doesn’t like the rain and it dies. We make our way to the mini water fall, jumping over creeks along the way. On the way back, we hear thunder and the lone guy in our group screams, much like a little girl. We all laugh. As we’re making our way back and reach the half way point, Maria Fernanda is jumping in every puddle and suddenly sings out “Ooh oh, we’re half way there.” Without hesitation Paola and I scream at the top of our lungs, “Ooh oh, living on a prayer.” After we get home and take hot showers, put on dry clothes, and blow-dry my wet camera, we make brownies for dinner. It was awesome.

The bad: As on all Fridays, we get off of work at 1:30, my roommates and I decide to wash our bed linens and hang them outside to dry while we walk to town and buy some groceries. Normally, we hang our clothes to dry inside the house because we’re never home, but today, we want our sheets to enjoy the sunshine. So we hang them on the clothes line and go into town. Soon it gets cloudy. Now I feel a few sprinkles on my arm, then a few more. “Fantastic,” I say sarcastically. There go our bed sheets. After about half an hour we trek back up the hill with our purchases, keeping our heads down to avoid the massive raindrops. Even though it’s raining, I can’t walk any quicker, my bags are heavy, my legs are tired, and I'm sweating. But at least it’s not raining super hard. When we breathlessly arrive back at our house, we hurry to take the sheets down from the clothes line. “Maybe they’ll be dry by tonight”, Yandira says hopefully. 7 hours later, they are still not dry, thank you humidity. This wouldn’t be a problem if we had extra sets of sheets, but we don’t. So we get creative. Carla and I clear off the kitchen table and lay a sheet on top. We pull out an iron and set to work. Miraculously, we remember that we have 2 irons (numerous volunteers have lived in this house before us) and so we both iron sheet by sheet until they are reasonably dry enough to sleep on. Teamwork saves the day, but I was still seriously missing the efficiency my clothes dryer back home.


The pathetic: Tuesday, 6:45 AM.
Today is a big day, the hospital administrator and I are going to Teguc to present our proposal to a representative from the Ministry of Health. The meeting is set for 8 AM. So I wake up early, put on my best, most professional looking clothes, stick my high heels in my purse and head out the door. The only problem is that it’s sprinkling. No problem, I think. It’s a short 5 minute walk to the hospital, I can make it. I was dead wrong. In one arm I have my laptop case, on one shoulder I carry my purse with my heels, on the other shoulder I have the case of the projector I took home the night before to practice and make sure our presentation would go without a hitch. In neither hand do I carry the most vital tool: an umbrella. I don’t have one. I did bring a jacket with me to put over my head, in a lame attempt to keep dry.


Almost as soon as I step onto the dirt road, I know I’m going to have some serious obstacles to overcome. It’s not just sprinkling anymore, it’s a torrential downpour. This the strongest rain I’ve ever seen, I feel like I should be looking for Noah and his ark. There are small rivers flowing through the dirt road and trash flowing through the “gutters”. I desperately try to roll up my pant legs with one hand to keep my nice dress pants dry, while the other hand holds on to my computer case for dear life. I take one step and the left pant leg comes unrolled. So I try to roll it up again. The next step I take and the right pant leg comes undone and drops in the mud. I look around to see if anyone is watching this pathetic event unfold. No sane person is outside, not even a stray dog. “I need help!” I sheepishly call out to no one in particular. But no one is around to help me. What I really need is a car, or at least an extra set of hands. But no such luck. It’s just me and I’m not even half way there. “Maybe if I run I can get there super fast and I won’t get so wet”, I think to myself. So I hitch my pant legs all the way up to my thigh, now is not the time for modesty, and make a run for it. Three steps in and my pant legs are dragging in the mud, my feet are soaking wet and there is mud inside my shoes. I can’t really see anything because I have a jacket over my head, so I step in mud puddles. 

Finally, after a lot of colorful language, I get to the hospital. I throw the good for nothing, soaking wet, lame excuse for a jacket down on the floor. My pants are soaked from the knee to the hem, the rest of my pants have very visible rain spots. My lovely blue blouse is pretty much see through now, thankfully I have on a undershirt. I walk around the hospital searching for a towel meanwhile leaving puddles with every step I take. As I wait for my boss to pick me up and try to figure out how things went so horribly wrong, the rain suddenly stops. Now I’m just mad, this is not a good start to the day. When my boss arrives, my bottom lip is sticking so far out I could practically trip on it. “I think I should change my clothes before we leave” I say to her, not even bothering to say good morning. I must look like a hot mess, because she just kind of stares at me and nods her head in agreement. “It wasn’t even raining at my house,” she admits.


After our meeting that morning, I asked her if we can stop and buy an umbrella before heading back to town. That was probably the best thing that happened all day.

I swear I’m not making this up or exaggerating, I’m not that creative. Every single thing I wrote happened in a span of 5 days.

I have no witty quote for today, you guys pick one this week. I changed the settings so anyone can leave a comment.

Over and out,
T-bird