The rain hasn’t really stopped at all today. There have been a few times that it seemed to have mostly stopped but it has never really ended. Without a doubt this is the most rain I’ve seen in years, maybe more than I’ve ever seen. I even saw a manhole cover that looked like it was going to fly into the air. I took a video of how it kept lifting up, air and water escaping and then the cover going back down.
After doing some errands this morning I headed back to the hotel to have lunch and change into dry clothing. The rain does something to me, makes me want hibernate and it wasn’t long before I was asleep. I think that’s a big part of why I hate the rain so much, it’s just depressing enough to make sleep something to look forward to in the afternoon.
I headed down to the river to see what it looked like. I’ve been hearing a lot of news about the flooding going on around me. For the most part the rain is coming down hard, and sometimes surprisingly hard, but except for streams of water making its way down the street there’s not too much of an indication of the amount of flooding that I’ve been hearing and reading about. When I got to the bridge I was struck how the neighborhood changed from touristy to almost slum-like, it was as if the river was the dividing line.
Even though I’ve never seen the river before today, I could tell that it was close to flooding. They have concrete walls along the bank of the river, and most of the time these walls would be more like guardrails to keep people from falling in. Today though the water was right at the base of these walls. Not really eerie but any higher and the water would be higher than the sidewalk I was walking on. What really was surprising was the amount of people there. Some were taking photos, some were just watching the water, and still others were playing in the river. Mostly the kids were jumping off the concrete walls and jumping into the river, but some older people were having fun too.
I was the only Westerner that I saw as I walked along the river. Sometimes I felt like I stood out too much for my own good, but in every encounter I was greeted very nicely. Almost everyone that didn’t say anything to me, smiled and nodded as I passed, but there were many who could tell that I was American. I was getting saluted by some kids, other were yelling at their friends to make room for the American so I could pass. Many of the kids said, “What’s up?” like it was a phrase that they’ve wanted to use for a while. With the same energy, I heard, “How’s it going?” and “Dude.” It was fun because as they would say something, I’d come up with something new, “Sup?” or “Hey.” Which they would immediately repeat as I walked past.
At one point I was walking along there were three girls dancing in the rain. Okay?? As I passed one started to tease me, asking me things like where I was going and stuff like that. I smiled, said something and kept walking. I got a ways away and realized that there wasn’t a bridge up ahead so I was going to have to turn around. That’s when the fun started. One group of kids saw me taking pictures and asked me to take one of them. So I did. They were making so much noise that others heard and they asked me to take photo of them as well. In the span of about a hundred meters I had taken about 6 photos of people asking me to. They were all wet and all very happy. By the time that I made it back to where the girls were dancing, they had gotten beer and were even bolder than before. They insisted that I take their photo so I did. I don’t think I can include a photo of the dancing girls, it’s just a little too risqué for the blog. It’s not that bad, I’m just not sure if it’s appropriate.
