Surviving Wilma

Well, with all of the weather excitement going on around here, I finally have a story to tell. Not really that exciting but, as weather goes, the really exciting stuff seems to be pretty devestating as well so I think I'll stick with boring. Anyway, I was in San José on Friday and barely caught a bus back to Puntarenas. It is generally a 2 hour ride but this one stretched out more than a bit due to excessive rains. Although we are generally geographically sheltered from the brunt of the hurricanes, we sometimes catch the tail end of them and get a lot of rain. As in, "¡Que lluvia!" It's a good thing I can swim. The bus drops me off about 1/2 mile from my house. I have to walk across an airstrip. (I thought it was abandoned but I was informed that every once in a while a plane lands there. I will keep an eye out.) The airstrip resembled what we call in English a "river." There was really only about 4 inches of water so it was more wading than swimming but I thought it would make a better story. Either way, I was soaked by the time I got home.

As drainage is generally a problem even when we are not experiencing hurricane-inspired rains, the streets also resembled rivers, as did our kitchen. There were a few inches in the house, but it was isolated and I only had to put down a few newspapers to absorb the moisture in my room. My tico dad informed me that raising the floor in the house would be a good summer Peace Corps project. So, I should have something to do in just a few more months. It was worse in other parts of the country though. A part of the Pan American Interstate washed away in the Southern part of the country. ¡Que torta!

Other than that it has been pretty "tranquilo" around here. You may be interested to know that Costa Rica has qualified for the World Cup. That was a big day. For those of you who are American; The World Cup is the world championship of Soccer. Soccer is the game with the black and white ball that you kick. It is a very popular sport everywhere else in the world.