The Joys of Living in the Tropics

As all of you know, life in the tropics is much different than life in Colorado. This has taken some getting used to for Patrick and I. We have experienced many of the joys the tropics have to offer in our first week here.

Our first exciting experience came this past Saturday night. We were out until about 9 p.m. that night, and when we came home, I saw what looked like a wad of black electrical tape lying in the middle of the living room floor. I thought this was strange, as we don't even own electrical tape. So, I began to walk right up to. But as I neared, I decided given the circumstances of being in a strange place, it was probably best not to lean down and grab it. That was perhaps the best thinking I have done in quite some time, as when I got close enough to distinguish what I was looking at, I realized it was a bat! Now, I have mentioned this to a few people already, and they have sort of shrugged it off, which I clearly don't understand. People, I feel this may warrant repeating - IT WAS A BAT! Luckily it was lying on its back not moving. This did not make me feel any better though because everyone knows that bats sleep upside down. So, I ran back to Patrick for help. While he was deciding what to do, he went into the kitchen. I am not sure why he felt the need to go into the kitchen at a time of such high alert so I must assume it was to wash his hands, which has became a rather frequent occurrence for my germ-a-phobe husband. Anyhow, while in there, he saw what is definitely either the largest or second largest cockroach I have seen in my life. The only one that might beat it is the one that led me to lock myself in my bedroom in my Senora's house in Spain. The difference between this one and that one is that this one was insanely fast! Luckily, Patrick managed to conquer that obstacle after whacking the thing with a newspaper about five times. Then, it was time to deal with the bat. Patrick, in all his brilliance, decided to use the trash can to trap the creature and scoot it across the floor so that he could fling it outside. Luckily, the bat turned out to be dead, or so we think, as it did not move at all during the whole experience (though, I must mention that, strangely, the bat was not outside the next morning. Talk about a heavy sleeper). And, thus, we survived our first major encounter with the joys of the tropics.

Unfortunately, later that night, we were confronted with the next experience. Patrick became violently ill and couldn't keep anything in his system for the next three days. He was running a horrible fever, which I really struggled to keep down, as the heat here is so intense, and we did not have a functioning air conditioning unit at the time. Luckily, he is finally beginning to feel normal again today. But, through the whole experience, we figure he lost about 15 pounds!

The next great adventure came with finding out that the Nicaraguans were not messing around when they named this season the "rainy season". As we have mentioned, we have a beautiful open-aired garden in the middle of our house. What we may not have mentioned is that the garden is surrounded by a roof that slants toward it from every direction. Fortunately, there is a gutter surrounding all of this roof, but unfortunately, we had a leak from the day we moved in. At first, we didn't think much of this leak as the rain had never lasted for more than 5 minutes at a time, and the rental company had conveniently placed a 10-gallon bucket under the leak for those times when it did rain. But, a few days ago, we had some pretty serious downpours. It usually never rains for long here, but when it does rain, it comes down pretty hard. We got caught in the rain and had waited the worst of it out under a building overhang in town only to come home to find our entire kitchen, dining room, and living room flooded! Since Patrick was sick, I set about sweeping what I could of the water into the drain, which is conveniently placed uphill from everything else in the house. But, no sooner did I get it cleaned up when it flooded again. This battle continued for the next few days until we finally got the rental company to send someone over to fix it. Good thing too, as today, we were hit by Hurricane Alma!

Yes, this is probably what I would call our next adventure, though it hasn't been too bad for us. We are without running water, but other than that the only problem we are experiencing is that the moisture has really brought out the mosquitoes. They are everywhere, which doesn't make me too happy, as they have a tendency to feast on me before anyone else. I have not been without at least 15 bug bites at all times since we have been down here. But, as I said, this is really a pretty minor result of the hurricane. I am actually really more worried about the kids and families in the barrio, as they have nowhere to go to get out of the rain, and their streets have to be flooded, which means that the sewer water they keep trapped in holes in the ground is also flooding their streets and homes. But, we will write more about the barrio in our next post.

For now, I just wanted to update you on the trials and tribulations of life in the tropics. Other fun experiences include lack of running water randomly almost every day, no hot water, and power outages at least once per day. But, it is all part of the adventure. We usually just smile and take it all in stride.

Melissa