Rain, Rain, Go Away

With Tropical Storm/Hurricane Sandy, we, like during and after Isaac are drenched with rain.  I asked someone what the word was here for "sheets" of rain.  He told me, "lluvia gatos y perros" - raining cats and dogs!  That was so funny to hear it in Spanish.

So here's how it looked outside a couple of days ago.

Beautiful blue ocean out there.

 Clear with nice, fluffy clouds.

Storm clouds are gathering - I love these photos though.

This was how it looked out the window yesterday morning when all the rain was falling horizontally.  Every once in awhile something would hit the glass which sounded like a piece of hail or small rock - we're on the 7th floor, so it's hard to believe that pebbles were falling from the sky, but...

This is the same view as in the first photo above.

This is out our west window

We have a second bathroom that has a ceiling which leaks when it rains - this is crazy because there are two floors above us, but it's true.  I wonder if there is a big crack in the cement wall outside or something.  Fortunately, all the bathrooms here have tile floors and a drain in the corner, but the room still gets a bit of water.  I put a bucket under the biggest leaks yesterday, and this was how it looked this morning.

Our bedroom had about an inch of water on the side by the window which was closed.  But the water comes through the windows and runs down the walls if you can see it here.  I'm just glad we don't have winter storms with these windows...

But I love rain, so all in all, it was fun to just work from the house and not worry about anything but changing the water bucket.  I do feel so badly for all of the homeless folks here or those with half roofs and dirt floors.   The traffic goes down to nothing when it rains because everyone stays home.  This time though there were a lot of trees down, so the wind was pretty strong.  As it whistled through our apartment last night, I thought it would make a great haunted house recording!

A Little of This and a Little of That

I’m just putting in this blog post a number of photos that I’ve taken over the last few months with some comments. We have been so busy lately that I can’t believe it – but it does make the time fly.  We were at the 8-month mark last Friday!

These are the beautiful grounds at the Temple - always so peaceful.

This was a truck I saw as we drove along.  I hope that they aren't mattresses

to be delivered to a Queen's palace for a Pea contest, but I don't know

that they aren't going somewhere for someone to actually use...

Although we can't receive mail here, we can mail it from the main

Santo Domingo Post Office.  When we stopped by there recently,

there were these three dogs outside.  They looked totally dead, but

I could see them breathing when we got closer.  However, they didn't

even move when people walked by them - just too hot, and a nice

cool place in the shade :-)

All buildings here are made with reinforced concrete. I don't

know if you can see from this photo that the stairwell

on the right is all formed concrete.  It's amazing what they do.

Not a great shot, but typical of these little stands that are set up

all over.  You could probably have a successful lemonade stand here.

Here is the entrance to the University of Santo Domingo.

There are dozens and dozens of universities here - I'm not

sure how many are actually accredited. - this one is..

Here are some beautiful morning clouds from outside

our apartment window - just heavenly.

And in the earth below -

these are two photos taken inside one of the large cemetaries.

Everyone has a little "house" to hold the coffins.  Some have

stained glass windows inside, or a statue of the Virgin Mary.

Some are really big and very fancy.