by Andy
After being sunny for the first couple of weeks we had been here, we finally had a rainy day. I was beginning to doubt if this country ever had any weather besides sunny skies. But apparently it had rained for about two straight weeks just before we arrived in the country and that had caused many problems for the Makarios people here. One of the main problems was that many kids just stopped coming to school for those two weeks. And the ones that did come could not play outside during recess which made the days harder for the teachers.
Erika and Chris take shelter from the rain.Charlie told me that Dominicans hate the rain. They understand that the rain is needed, but it causes so much disruption that many seem to resent it. And after dealing with one rainy day, I can understand why the locals would have issues with rain. First, pretty much everything here is open air and homes don’t have air conditioning. So when it rains we have to close at least some of the windows in the house, which makes it warm and sticky inside. Clothes and towels won’t dry with the high humidity and sheets will feel damp. If you are planning on doing laundry, you have to hope for a warm, dry day since all laundry here is hung out to dry. (You also can’t start a load after 2pm or it won’t dry before night.) After two weeks of rain, I can imagine you start to run low on clean clothes.
The rain also makes it hard for people to move around. If you are taking public transportation, you have to stand out on the street and wait for a public car or guagua (taxi van) in the rain. And you’ll probably have to wait longer on rainy days because many cars and guaguas are full since more people taking public transportation and less are walking or taking motos. And that’s the other problem, many people use motos to move around which is pretty miserable in the rain. Charlie and I saw one moto driver going down the highway with one hand over his eyes, looking through a small slit between his fingers to keep the rain from stinging his eyes. He should invest in some goggles.
After our Valentine’s date.I was riding in the Makarios truck with Miguel that rainy day and we had to have the windows almost all the way up, but we left a crack at the top since the truck, like most vehicles here, doesn’t have A/C. So the truck was warm and stuffy and my shoulder would get wet from the rain coming in through the crack., Miguel had to keep wiping the windshield off with a rag because it kept fogging without having A/C. I asked Miguel how long he thought it would rain and he respond this: “I don’t know. My country is tropical. It could rain for an hour or it could last a week.” It ended up being sunny the next day.
The day after rain we have to deal with muddy roads.Thanks to Lauren’s parents for giving us new rain jackets just before we came down here. They work great.
