Monsoon!

Monsoon!

The Monsoon is finally upon us. I was dreading this day since coming here, and all my fears were confirmed! It rained buckets yesterday! I have never seen that much rain fall from the sky unceasingly! I was outside all morning and was soaked through and through. My skimpy little red rain coat was no defense against the mad down poor. The water on the street I live ( sudder street) on was up to your knees and filthy. One of the volunteers I work with, John, was walking and almost fell into a man hole, he scraped his leg but he didn't fall in. We were waiting for a bus back for about forty minutes and gave up and got a taxi. The taxi driver charged us way more than he was supposed to so when he got to the end of our street we wouldn't get out! We said we are paying 80 rupees you are bringing us to our door! He kept driving and when he was mostly there the water was so high it was almost to his engine so he stopped and kicked us out. Stepping out of the taxi into a massive stream of brown icky water was quite the experience. My clothes were already soaked so I wasn't worried about my pants getting wet, more worried about what I might step on or fall into! As we walked trash and who knows what wrapped around our ankles. At one point I was trying to kick off what I thought was trash wrapped around my leg and then I realized it was just my pant leg and fallen down and was now wrapping around my leg.  We slowly waded through the water to our hotel being careful not to step in any uncovered man holes on the ally way towards our hotel there is an outside urinal, we had to wade through the water right next to it, It was almost to much to bare. John reminded me we have been walking through that this whole time and it probably isn't any worse in this area.  Luckily our hotel is kind of on high ground and outside the door there wasn't any water.

When we got to our hotel one of the hotel managers said we had no need for a shower we just got one outside. All I wanted was a hot shower and to get into dry clothes! The water wasn't working that morning and I was afraid it still wasn't working but it was! I got a nice cold instead of hot shower, dried off put on the one pair of jeans I brought with me and went and hung with some other volunteers in their hotel room! I was determined not to go outside again! I had been soaked all morning I wanted to stay warm and dry the rest of the day! After about 5 min of relaxing and being dry my stomach reminded me of a very important part of being human....we need food! Luckily we decided to send one person out to the grocery store to get food for all of us and even more luckily I was not that person! Our lunch was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a banana and mango fruit salad. It was quite delicious but not enough. After we had finished eating, and most of us were still hungry, we decided that it would be a good day to order domino's for dinner. We asked around our hotel and we got a group of 11 that agreed that ordering food was a good plan. The one fault to our plan was we didn't have domino's number. So I decided to change out of my jeans and into some other pants and venture out into the swamp that is now sudder street. I went to the inet cafe and found domino's number ordered the pizza and headed back. Two other volunteers went out and bought the makings for a tropical sangria, which they made in their laundry bucket. All 11 squeezed on the porch of our hotel and ate pizza and drank the sangria out of the laundry bucket! It was a very fun time!

Today was much nicer, it only sprinkled when it rained and the knee deep water has all drained away from sudder street! I most definitely prefer the unbearable heat to this!

Monsoon!

The Monsoon is finally upon us. I was dreading this day since coming here, and all my fears were confirmed! It rained buckets yesterday! I have never seen that much rain fall from the sky unceasingly! I was outside all morning and was soaked through and through. My skimpy little red rain coat was no defense against the mad down poor. The water on the street I live ( sudder street) on was up to your knees and filthy. One of the volunteers I work with, John, was walking and almost fell into a man hole, he scraped his leg but he didn't fall in. We were waiting for a bus back for about forty minutes and gave up and got a taxi. The taxi driver charged us way more than he was supposed to so when he got to the end of our street we wouldn't get out! We said we are paying 80 rupees you are bringing us to our door! He kept driving and when he was mostly there the water was so high it was almost to his engine so he stopped and kicked us out. Stepping out of the taxi into a massive stream of brown icky water was quite the experience. My clothes were already soaked so I wasn't worried about my pants getting wet, more worried about what I might step on or fall into! As we walked trash and who knows what wrapped around our ankles. At one point I was trying to kick off what I thought was trash wrapped around my leg and then I realized it was just my pant leg and fallen down and was now wrapping around my leg.  We slowly waded through the water to our hotel being careful not to step in any uncovered man holes on the ally way towards our hotel there is an outside urinal, we had to wade through the water right next to it, It was almost to much to bare. John reminded me we have been walking through that this whole time and it probably isn't any worse in this area.  Luckily our hotel is kind of on high ground and outside the door there wasn't any water.

When we got to our hotel one of the hotel managers said we had no need for a shower we just got one outside. All I wanted was a hot shower and to get into dry clothes! The water wasn't working that morning and I was afraid it still wasn't working but it was! I got a nice cold instead of hot shower, dried off put on the one pair of jeans I brought with me and went and hung with some other volunteers in their hotel room! I was determined not to go outside again! I had been soaked all morning I wanted to stay warm and dry the rest of the day! After about 5 min of relaxing and being dry my stomach reminded me of a very important part of being human....we need food! Luckily we decided to send one person out to the grocery store to get food for all of us and even more luckily I was not that person! Our lunch was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a banana and mango fruit salad. It was quite delicious but not enough. After we had finished eating, and most of us were still hungry, we decided that it would be a good day to order domino's for dinner. We asked around our hotel and we got a group of 11 that agreed that ordering food was a good plan. The one fault to our plan was we didn't have domino's number. So I decided to change out of my jeans and into some other pants and venture out into the swamp that is now sudder street. I went to the inet cafe and found domino's number ordered the pizza and headed back. Two other volunteers went out and bought the makings for a tropical sangria, which they made in their laundry bucket. All 11 squeezed on the porch of our hotel and ate pizza and drank the sangria out of the laundry bucket! It was a very fun time!

Today was much nicer, it only sprinkled when it rained and the knee deep water has all drained away from sudder street! I most definitely prefer the unbearable heat to this!