It´s raining in the desert!

Today I woke up under my mosquito net to the sound of rain falling steadily outside. Listening to rain in the morning gives me such a peaceful, rejuvenated feeling, that everything is tranquil as the sky is nourshing the earth. I missed the rain. I thought I wasn´t going to get any of it for the next two years, which has been the case for the past year or so in these parts. It´s even more exciting to see the rain since the authorities have been freaking out about the drought, which is not so good when agriculture is one of the principal economic activities in Piura. In addition, as I can verify just by tasting the salty tap water, fresh water sources (groundwater) are depleted. Hooray, for rain!

February 2nd was World Wetland´s Day, as I´ve mentioned in previous entries. At the end of the day, I thought, "what a typical Peace Corps experience."

Thanks to my counterpart bringing me to Piura to do nothing but wait and kill time for 6 hours the previous day (I was supposed to translate a document, even though I ended up not having to do it, arghhh), I had been up until midnight working on a PowerPoint presentation chock full of photos of different wetland types from different countries around the world. I was excited to show the kids all the beauty that there is in this world, reminding them that the world is a lot bigger than Piura. Having learned from the Mangrove Festival, I went to the Municipality early to double check that everything was ready -- the two big buses, the cookies, soda, drawing materials, opening up the auditorium and more. Then they told me that there was a blackout until 11am that day. So all those hours and love spent on this presentation were in vain. Oh, well, that´s what I get for depending on technology and electricity in Peace Corps. Then the people collaborating with us decided to change my plans at the mangroves when the kids were getting off the bus. I had planned that they would engage the kids in the kite-flying and drawing competitions while we took 10 kids at a time for a nature walk. What ended up happening was the different groups of 10 kids each got their own guide, either from INRENA (Nat´l Resources gov office), the biologist, or myself. I was disappointed because we never pre-planned what educational content to dispel nor did we have enough binoculars and telescopes for every group to have their own, so it was really disorganized. I had wanted to make sure all the kids learned about wetlands in addition to mangroves, the importance and threats to mangroves, and what they could do to protect them. Oh well. We also ended up in a different spot than I had planned for since my counterpart told the driver to go somewhere else, even though I had told the driver where to go and he understood where I meant. So we were not even located close to the mangroves. Then, none of the adults helped me make sure the kids stayed out of the water, so most of the day was spent letting the kids fool around and have fun. I´m not opposed to fun, but I really wanted it to be an educational day as well. However, the kids really loved using the binoculars and telescopes. So did the adults who came to help supervise. Plus, there´s always World Water Day on March 22nd!

I saw two movies this weekend: Jarhead and La Mujer de mi Hermano, which is written by a Peruvian author. I definitely recommend Jarhead. Liked it a lot. Wasn´t another stupid war movie depicting how everyone dies but all it really does is wow people with visual effects. Instead, the movie focused on the messed up psychology of Marines during Desert Shield, and there were no scenes of limbs flying mid-air and bleeding. La Mujer de mi Hermano was alright, but the book is much better. I´m in the middle of it right now.

I walked in the desert for 3.5 hours on Saturday with two engineers from INRENA to map the GPS coordinates of the protected area. I got a sunburn on my face with a sexy sunglass line. I saw a wild goat, an iguana, lots of lizards and lots of sand. No foxes, unfortunately. The engineers asked me whether I´ve ever taken a wilderness survival course, haha. I was ready with a white long t-shirt, hat, sunblock, insect repellent, a Nalgene-full of water, sucking candy, a plantain, and two handkerchiefs. Nope, I said. Just lots of hikes through the jungle.

I´ve uploaded more photos onto my flickr site. I like them!