morning (wet) commute

This is one morning I wish I had pictures of...but I don't, so the description will have to suffice.

So we're in the middle of heavy rainy season here in Nicaragua, which means that frequently it rains all night, or all afternoon, or all morning. Anytime, really--you get the picture.

So yesterday was one of those days that it was raining at 7am when my roommates and I had to leave to go to the office. It wasn't totally pouring (just a steady drizzle), so we decided to go for it. We donned our rain jackets and headed out into the gray chilly capital, bravely crossing the high-traffic street in front of our neighborhood to wait for the bus. We stood under a tree, which helped a little but already I was starting to feel the rain through my jacket before we even got on the bus. (My hood actually functioned remarkably well, though ironically my hair was the only part of me that was actually already wet since I don't use a hair dryer here.)

Finally the bus came, we boarded, and the rain continued as we journeyed up past the U.S. Embassy (I see it every morning), and to our transfer point (the infamous 7 Sur), where we got off and walked across the busiest intersection in the city to wait for a microbus to take us up the hill.

Now, at this point, I have to say, I was ready to take a cab. My purse was already soaked and the front of my pants were quite damp. But, since my roommates seemed fine, I decided to be a good sport and go with the flow. Thankfully, we were able to quickly board a microbus up the hill to the cemetery entrance where we got off--right as the rain picked up.

And really, folks, this was just the beginning...because we spent the next 20 minutes walking through medium-hard rain from the cemetery to the office. On a non-rainy day, it is a very pleasant walk (though we do frequently arrive sweating profusely due to the humidity). I kept hoping someone with a vehicle would pass us (as often happens), but of course on this comedy-of-a-morning, we would have no such good fortune. We would walk the whole way (although it wasn't til half way through that I decided to actually roll my pants up to try to limit the mud stains on them).

Ever the cup-is-half-full types, Andrea and Alicia proceeded to list all of the ways the morning could have been worse.

We could be homeless. We could have not eaten breakfast this morning. We could be that kid with no shoes walking through the puddles (okay, actually I would have rather been him). By the end, I was soaked and miserable, but I was laughing at the absurdity of it all. For 80 cordoba (about $4), we could have avoided all of this. But since we decided to go the hard core cross-cultural workers route (cultural bonding, anyone?) like the crazy north americans we are, we got drenched. (And really, no Nica would have done what we did. They would have taken a moto-taxi or done anything else possible to avoid walking in the rain.)

It was quite the experience. The perfect way to start the day that I taught my first Nicaraguan history class.

I love this country.