Today was an interesting day.  When I awoke, it looked rather gray and ominous outside.  By the time my roommate and I left, water was pouring down past our 17th story apartment, and we realized that our towels were still out on the balcony.  Oops.  As we left the building, we greeted the porteros, who were trying to sweep water off of the sidewalk outside of our building.  My roommate, Maria Rene, was smart enough to bring an umbrella.  I am fortunate enough to be living with her, as I never seem to be the person who is prepared for anything.  Me and Maria Rene walked up one side of the street before we realized that there was no way of crossing it to get to school without wading through ankle-deep water, and that either the ocean had crossed the strip of land into the street, or their was so much water that the two sort of merged.  We went back the other way, found a narrower swath of water that looked possible, and jumped over the massive puddles and across the road, then around the corner and into school.

Once I got to school and started walking to my classroom, I realized that this was not going to be a usual day.  The first and second grade classrooms are on the other side of school from the rest of the campus, and the door to my classroom involves going around to the other side of the first/second building to get in.  This morning, this usual passage was a virtual lake that swept from the edge of the basketball court, past my sidewalk, and onto the playground.  Even with my holding the hems of my pants up and fervently wishing I had some rainboots, there was no way I could pass that with any sort of dignity intact.  I tried anyway, hopping from steps to spot of mud, before I realized that I would have to leap over something to get to my classroom. Whatever, this was clearly not happening.  I walked back and cut through another first grade classroom.

My class had NWEA testing this morning, which in sum is a computerized test that responds to the answers the student inputs and adjusts to their level.  Unfortunately, this was in the main part of campus, which involved that whole treacherous trip…oh my.  We cut through the 1B classroom, and made it to and through the testing without much mishap.  We had assembled our semi-line and were making our way back to our room, when I stopped the class before we passed on the sidewalk toward our side of school.  There was no possible way were passing without twenty very soaked first graders, so luckily the school nurse was there, and we spoke with the Elementary principal and then the school director.  We decided to corral the kids through the art and drama room.  At this point, they were getting pretty riled up.  This was pretty exciting for everyone.  We settled most of the kids in chairs at the big art room tables, and the of course everyone wanted to know what was happening, how much water there was, so of course everyone kept rushing to the windows to check out the progress of the slowly creeping water.  Oh my.  And the director got the maintainence department to put the kids on this little cart, foru at a time, and roll the cart through the water to the less flooded basketball court, where they were ferried through the pouring rain by the head of maintainence and two very large umbrellas.  That was quite the sight to see.  And of course, we had to head back through the 1B classroom, and finally made it back to our room.  This was all before about 9 AM.  The rest of the day, we were mostly trapped on our side of campus, and the kids were pretty excited and energized for most of the day.

Also, the water went out at the end of school, but it came back a little before 6.  I’m crossing my fingers we don’t get anymore rain this week!

Much love,

Linnea