At about 7pm on Thursday night, the sky began to turn ugly as the sun went down. Within 20 minutes, after a day full of sunshine, the winds picked up, the sky became black with sporadic lightning bolts right on top of us, and the thunder seemed as though we were being bombed. The windows of my house were actually shuddering with each thunder clap. I prepared for the rain by putting the bucket in the kitchen where it normally drips, locking my doors, and finding my flashlights. With a huge clap of thunder, the electricity went out for what would be about 40 hours. I tried going to bed,as there is not much else to do without electricity, but the wind was blowing so hard, I was afraid for my kitchen, where the roof is a bit less than secure. I got up to peer into the kitchen only to find the gutter between the kitchen and my bedroom roofs overflowing with rain water, producing a mini waterfall. The refrigerator was getting poured on, as well as all the recycled materials I had been collecting to teach about how one can reuse trash. There was nothing I could do at that hour, so I shut the kitchen windows and pretended like it wasn't happening. I sat back down on my bed and realized it was all wet from water blowing through my bedroom window because of the wind. I moved my bed, shined my flashlight on the floor and saw a huge growing puddle in front of the door. The wind was blowing so hard, it blew all the rain water from my front patio into my room, wetting all my didactic materials for dental health. I called Jacob and Steph in a panic, complaining about my situation and asking for their advice. I went to bed with my headphones on to block out all the noise and hoped for the best.
The next morning, I was woken up my a knock on my door at 6:30am. It was my little 6 year old neighbor coming over to make sure I was okay. He helped me clean up my kitchen a little bit and went on his way to go play in the mud. There were trees down all over the avenida. I saw tons of people going out to the road with their machetes, thinking what the heck is everyone doing?! People started walking by with tons of chopped wood being pulled behind them on ropes or on the backs of their horses or cows. I thought they were just cleaning up the road, but then realized that everyone was racing out there to get the best firewood used for cooking.
Part of my tree fell on my power lines, but luckily didn't tear them down. I had to ask my neighbor to come over with his machete to help me get it off the cables and he happily came to my rescue. Next thing I have to do, is fix my gutter in order to rainproof my house a bit more.
The next 24 hours was spent rearranging my room to get everything off the floors so nothing will get wet in the next rain storm. I cleaned up all around my house, sweeping all the leaves and sticks up to put in my abono (compost) pile. Without the computer, a cell phone (my battery died within a few hours of the electricity going out), light, or water, I laid around reading my book, eating peanut butter because I had no water to cook with, and hanging out with neighbors, enjoying the fact that I had survived the big storm! If my house can survive a storm like that, I'm pretty sure it can survive anything. hooray!
mom- i didn't write this blog to worry you, just to share my experience.. DON'T WORRY about me. i'm fine :) love you darling
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