Hola-la-la-dee-daah!Sorry for the lack of communication... The internet has been down for several days. And the electricity is still iffy -- in fact, it went out about an hour ago. Stop the insanity!!!
So, rumor has it there was a little storm here... HA! Yep, it rained and rained and rained for more than 24 hours straight. I thought I was about to grow fins. Joel and I were going a little stir crazy, sitting here doing nothing. We had already played chess by candlelight (romantic, yes?) and I won all 3 games (not so romantic for Joel). The internet was down and the electricity was going on and off...mostly off. So what would most rational people do during a tropical storm? Well, drive to town and play pool, of course! The roads here are bad even when they're dry, so add rain and mud to that mix and you've got a mess on your hands. With the amount of rain we'd had by then, it took us a good 30 minutes to travel 5 miles because we had to navigate our way around flooded roads. All I could think was, "Thank goodness we have a 4wd car!" (Ok, that and, "What the &^%# are we doing driving in this???") So we got to town and yes, we played pool -- sometimes in the dark, due to the electricity going off -- then we ran to the grocery store with 400 of our closest neighbors to get food. The electricity went on and off there, too. (Do you notice a theme?) 
Aaaanywaaay, it took us over 2 hours to make it home. We live in an area surrounded by creeks and duuuh! Whaddya know? They were all flooded. And the roads near the creeks were covered in MUD MUD MUD because the roads become giant mud funnels when it rains, evidently. So we couldn't get through, 4wd or not. If we had a flying car, we would've been ok. And oh, here they don't belive in "Turn around, don't drown." Nooo, if there's a flooded creek and no one is there to stop you, GO FOR IT! We actually watched as firemen pulled a motorcyclist to safety after he tried crossing one of these muddy creeks and got miserably stuck. And later, at another flooded creek, we saw a policeman linking arms with people and escorting them across, through the rushing water... WHAT THE...??? Jim Spencer of Channel 36 would have a COW over this! So we contemplated a stay at one of the hotels in Antigua, but money is tight so we then comtemplated sleeping in the back of the car, but I really wanted to go home and brush my teeth, so we decided to give the main road ooooone mooooore tryyyyy... Luckily they had just moved enough mud to slowly start allowing cars through. Yay! So we got through and sloshed our way through the mud and back home. And I mean SLOSHED -- there's still mud stuck in our car door handles, if that tells you how high it was. Look at the pictures and you'll get a better idea of what it was like here. And they are STILL cleaning up -- the main road is covered in feet of mud and the clean up efforts are sooo disorganized. It's going to take a long time before things get back to normal.
So! In the 2.5 weeks I've been here, we've had an earthquake (small, but still fun), an eruption at Pacaya Volcano (Joel and I have climbed it twice -- last time was March 2010), and tropical storm Agatha which brought mudslides, sinkholes, and floods. WELL! Things can't get much more exciting, can they? Hmmm...unless they discover a nest of cobras living under our apartment. But seriously, y'all should come visit us here! It's more fun than Disneyland! And the rides are FREE...
On a lighter note, here's a lovely picture of all of the lovely food we got at the market for the lovely price of Q55 -- less than $7. Strawberries, papaya, mangoes (my favorite), 3 pounds of green beans, 30 eggs, potatoes, oranges, plantains (eew, Joel likes those), and a pineapple... Not bad, eh? NOW, don't you want to come visit???
And to prove we really ARE alive, I've also included a picture taken on Monday at one of the hotels we hope to get jobs at -- Hotel Casa Santo Domingo. It's an aweeeesooome hotel. Joel has a much better chance of getting hired because he's bilingual. It's going to be verrry hard for me to find anything here. Can someone please wave a magic wand and suddenly have me speaking Spanish??? I'll give you my flying car in exchange... I hope all's well in everyone's world. Please write and tell me how life is going elsewhere! Until next time, stay thirsty my friends...
-Jennifer
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