Rain, Glorious Rain!

Last night, we woke up to a cool breeze and a pounding on the tin roof! It was raining! It's not exactly the season for rain, but we're sure not complaining! This morning, before it was time to get out of bed, I even took out my sheet and covered myself with the sheet because I was almost cold. Wow. It may have been the last time in my 20's that I sleep covered with something...

Grace and I couldn't even go down to the corner to get donuts for everyone, since it was raining too much!

We did, however, have to go out in the mud to fetch another couple at the airport. We've still got three people to come, and then we're full to capacity in this guesthouse. Phew, it's hard to find a place to sit where there are no people! Good thing me and Zane like people!

On the way to the airport, we stopped downtown at the bank for Jackie to change some money. Grace and sat and guarded the truck (we were both wearing our pink and yellow tie-died guard duty flip flops anyways), and took some photos of the street scened. This is the scene from the street across the road from the bank. And yes, there really IS that much garbage on the streets downtown. There's no such thing as a garbage truck, or even a garbage dump anywhere here. So everyone just throws their garbage on the ground, or dumps their shop garbage in the street in front of their shop or house.
We successfully changed the money, I successfully asserted myself in the road as I tried to manouever out of my parking "spot", and then we successfully picked up our friends from the airport. This couple first came here in 1977, and already, on the way home from the airport, they were harking back to the old days! This is going to be a great week full of good stories, I'm sure!

On the way back to the compound, passed the photocopy/fresh milk shop. We've never actually gone there to see if there is fresh milk, but we have gone to photocopy our passports, which we ended up not needing to register...
We also waved to the kids in the neighborhood, as usual. Grace even snapped a photo of the neighborhood as we drove by. These are our closest neighbors:
Unfortunately, we've noticed that there's a lot more garbage in our neighborhood than there was when we left... but that just stands to reason, since there's been a few months of garbage from even more people, collecting in the streets. If only someone would start a garbage collection business. Much of the garbage is just old plastic bottles - water bottles, coke bottles, juice bottles... things that we bring back to the recycle place and get 5 cents for back home. You could honestly become a millionaire if you collected the plastic bottles from this place. I think Richard should be able to come up with some kind of plan to use them as fuel for the generator or something...

I'm sure this won't be the last post of the day. With so many people around this place, I may end up sitting right here at my desk in my room, keeping Zane and Grace company. Just like this (but most days my hair isn't as wonky - the rain has made it rather humid...). Also notice how "Tanya at home" on a Saturday morning looks much the same as "Tanya at the office" (Previously posted photo, but posted again for comparison sake).