Happy Easter, First Rain

April 8^th

Happy Easter! To celebrate, today we had our first rain. It started out nice and gentle, but quickly turned into a pounding, roaring storm, blowing rain in through my closed windows while I made pancakes for brunch (with Easter colored M&Ms, courtesy of Chuck and T!). I was disappointed that the wind blew the cover off of my cannery, which I had finally washed out and filled with nearly 20L of filtered water that is now the color of mud. Oh well, tomorrow I'll start again. (A cannery is an unglazed ceramic round pot that you fill with water and as it leaks through to the outside of the ceramic and evaporates, it cools the water inside – the change is very dramatic!) I did my laundry early in the morning, so thankfully I didn't end up with muddy sheets, and my water barrel is full so if the tap doesn't work tomorrow I'm still set for a few days at least (the tap where I get my water is solar powered – no sun=no water). The only downside to the clouds is that I use a small solar charger to charge my lantern batteries every day, meaning I'll need to switch to using my headlamp and it's non-rechargeable batteries that need changing. I think this is only the 2^nd time since January that I've changed them, so that's not too bad really. I just hate having so many dead batteries that I don't know what to do with. You aren't supposed to burn them, although most people do, and you're not supposed to put them down your latrine because of leaching, but that's really the only other option unless you want to see a toddler picking it up and chewing on it. Makes me miss home – recycling is so easy!

I had been hiding out in my house after the rain had stopped when Mariam came to see me and told me to come visit. So off I went and sat over at Belem's with all the women from the CSPS and we laughed and ate (boy did we eat!) and David brought us sodas (as the sole practicing Catholic on the staff it's his job to pay for the sodas on christian holidays). It was a lot of fun, although the conversation tended to elude me being almost entirely in Moore. We shared 2 types of rice and sauce, riz gras, and then gallettes, all on top of the pancakes that I'd eaten only a few hours earlier. My stomach hurt so badly, but it was just so tasty. We all went home as it was getting dark, and they laughed at my shock when they said they planned to still eat dinner after showering. This wasn't dinner? How could they possibly eat any more after all that?!