Ecuador Day 8: Día De Lluvia

I woke up to the night rain.

I didn't check my watch but judging from the darkness outside my window, its no where near time for the Sun to come around this way. I laid back down and set my head on its side to look up through the window above my bed. The rain hit hard against the house, thrown by the whipping wind that also shook the trees and what I could assume were many fruits off the trees. 

Falling asleep took some work. I don't mind the rain really, I actually enjoy the sound of it so that I stayed awake for it. Something about it helps me relax whenever I am inside. Outside is a different story.

Right away I knew when I woke up again that we would not be up to much. Rain drops fell all night and still. It makes the plants outside happy but it didn't do much good to the laundry we left outside on the line. Simba is hiding under the exposed shingles of the guest house roof, the cats and feral roosters are nowhere to be seen, and I stayed dry inside in the living room reading while New Orleans second line brass jazz music played in the background entertaining the mood in the kitchen. The music brought back memories of wild times living in Uthai Thani, Thailand.

Good day for catching up with my blog. 

This picture doesn't capture the rain as I would have liked. I've written before about film directors and how hard it is to capture the effects of water falling on screen. Again here, the yard doesn't look drenched at all despite being rained on for hours upon hours.

Another failed attempt. I was hopping that the plant leafs here would capture the wet environment. Instead, just another sad reminder that our clothes sat wet outside. At least the plants are happy. 

What to do on an off rainy day but stay inside and goof off. Board games were won, books were read, indoor soccer games using green balloons were had. How's this for expert parenting: there are a good fifty-eight (58) years between these two rascals and this father and son pair and neither skips a beat. One teaching the other, the other showing the first. 

Just because we couldn't go outside because of the rain did not mean that it was cold. All the same, coffee was had at morning at mid afternoon with some pan dulce to keep us going. Normally, I am a flavors kind of guy, I enjoy a good flavor that is not too sweet. And normally I would say that there are only two types of people on this planet: those who like flavors and those who like chocolate. Its like the divide between the alcoholics and the pot heads; people tend to pledge allegiance to one side or the other, though some double dipping does go one. Anyways, my point is that since arriving, the Ecuadorian natural chocolate has me questioning my allegiance. I am starting to eat more of this delicious chocolate in everything from regular chocolate bars, to over pan ducle, to strawberry dipped, to chocolate eater egg bunnies.

King of goofing off. How do you think I graduated from Cal with two degrees?

Pizza time. Besides high priced fruits and vegetables, the third thing I do not miss most of living in Japan is not having access to an oven. Granted that I have probably saved a few bad kilos by not baking regular batches of apple crisps and cookies, but to not have pizza? That's un-American. At last, here we are reunited. Gabi made a second pizza of corn meal and this one is mine of flower. Gabi has a wheat allergy so she cant have any, Emilie doesn't like cheese on her pizza (that's a first for me), and I optioned to have my half  a very rarely chosen vegetarian style.

Who could have guessed what happened next? I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised. After all, we are living way out in the country side. Like my Thailand home, we are using gas tanks hidden under counter tops. There is no outside infrastructure to bring gas into the house, everyone uses up whatever the tank holds, refill by refill. Anyways, the gas ran out mid pizza bake. Dang.

A quick bang on our neighbor's door, a short wait and a tip, and we were back in business. Dinner was served and everyone got the portion they wanted each allocated with their specific individual requests. Nothing was missing, not even the hot sauce. 

So that was it, a rainy day inside with not much to do but entertain ourselves. I got to upload a bunch of photos, which, with the internet here, takes an ungodly amount of patience. I even snuck in a chapter of my book while the kids were distracted with I don't care what. And now, its time for bed.

Much love,

-A