Gorging

Today I have been reading David Sedaris, a hilariously good short stories writer. If you haven't read anything by him you either, haven't heard of him before, or don't enjoy laughing. As with most times that I read I am inspired to write similarly to that which I had been reading. I almost completely filled my journal with the description of the corn stalks in Mali after finishing John Steinbeck's “East of Eden”. And as I would love to think of myself as extremely hilarious, I have discovered however, that I am just very good at knowing what my family and close friends find funny. This tends to get me in trouble when I assume everyone has this same sense of humor at say, a dinner party of fellow volunteers and our Country Director (my boss' boss). At any rate, in a house where I usually have electricity and cable and screaming children to keep me entertained, I found myself bored enough to go to my emergency stash of reading. I am currently out of books to read and, because Sedaris is both hilarious and in short story form, I have been trying to savor the book by only reading a short story here and there with breakfast or before my afternoon nap. So today I gorged, I blame it on the rain.

            The rainy season has started and I am loving it. Except of course my clothes not drying all the way, the humidity wringing the sweat out of me like I'm a sponge, water dripping through the adobe tiles onto my face at night, being woken up by claps of thunder that feel like they will bring down the house and only having slightly reliable electricity for about 5 hours a day. But, hey, at least it's cool until about 8 am so I can get my morning run in. Today the rain started mid afternoon and I was ready for the power to go out but just as it seemed safe, I sat back to enjoyed an old episode of “The Big Bang Theory” only to have my host grandma busted in and tell me to unplug the TV immediately. Although it seemed like just another irrational nicaraguan-ism to me, like not eating limes when you are sick or not showering when you are warm to prevent getting a cold, apparently a house just down the street was struck by lightening because of the TV being plugged in and shattered all of the tiles of the roof. Because I could see the evidence around the corner and really it wasn't my house to gamble I complied and sat out to enjoy the storm rolling in. The quiet crescendo of drops and rolling thunder however were overcome by the unnecessarily loud evangelical church next store. Apparently they weren't worried about shattering tiles, with or without lightening. I am generally pretty tolerant of religion, even when it is almost pushed upon you with their outward, in the community practices but I really don't understand the need to broadcast bad singing and electric key boards. Although God may appreciate them in their own house of worship, a electric sound system that engulfs the whole neighborhood is quite unnecessary. Especially when it is at 4 in the morning, five days in a row, for two hours at a time. I asked my host family what holiday or event could possibly necessitate a 4 am church service for almost a week. When I was answered that there was none, they just wanted to pray to god, I retorted with, “Well don't they think that God can hear them during the day? I mean he is God after all.” Seeing as though the power wasn't going to conveniently go out so I could enjoy the weather, I retreated to my room, put in my much appreciated ear plugs and gorged on my bit size nuggets of laughter. Happy Rainy season everyone.