What a difference 10 degrees makes. Ever since we arrived in April the temperature has hovered between 82 and 95. But now that the rainy season is in full swing the temperature has dipped to the low 70’s and you would think the Big Freeze has hit Honduras. Everyone walks around in sweaters and jackets. Sadie and Hannah complain that they are freezing all the time, we’ve put away the floor fans and put blankets on the beds. Unfortunately it also means that we’ll go days and weeks without seeing the sun and we’ll experience constant rain. So far the pattern has been to have an incredible downpour (called an aguacero in Spanish) then days of steady constant rain. Today the sun came out for the first time in a week and everyone was thrilled. We haven’t been here long enough to know if we’ll get more sun tomorrow. Last year they said they went 30 days without sunshine, but I’m a bit dubious of that claim.

From what I’ve been told it would be impossible to find a rain gauge for sale here so I brought one back from the States this week. I purchased it in Los Angeles which is a feat in itself because Southern Californians apparently have no need for them. I went to three stores to find one and a couple people I asked weren’t quite sure what one was. I haven’t put it up yet, but according to weather sites in the next couple of months we should get about 40 inches of rain or a third of the projected 120 inches of annual rainfall!

To make things more interesting, the street in front of our house floods anytime there is a good rain. By flood I mean we get a good 2 ½ feet or more – it doesn’t rain that much but we live in a low spot on the street. Like all houses we have a gate at the street that remains locked all the time so when we leave the house we have to put on boots, walk down the drive in the rain to the gate, unlock the gate (trickier than it might seem while holding onto an umbrella), open the gate by walking out into the 2.5 of water. If Ellen or I are alone when leaving the house then we have move the car to a dry spot about 50 meters away then trudge back through the water to close the gate. Oh, and most of the water comes up FROM the sewer system and is really pretty gross. But if you like lots of cool, rainy, wet, muddy days have we got the place for you. The fun is supposed to end in January when the rainy season draws to a close.

The rain has put a dent in my new hobby – riding our new Yamaha moped. It’s great fun to go riding on a pretty afternoon (and until recently most of the afternoons were hot and pretty) with Hannah, do some exploring around the town then grab a quick ice cream cone. Sadie doesn’t care to get on the moped because of an incident that happened a few weeks ago, but that is another story. The only downside of having the moped is that I don’t walk as much and the beauty of this town is much easier to appreciate on foot than on a moped. On the plus side it has made it much easier to run errands. Ellen and I ride it together to shop downtown because otherwise parking is a nightmare.

Work at the Foundation is beginning to become comfortable. Thanks to some generous people, many of whom will read this letter, we currently have raised $191,000 of our goal of $200,000. My predecessor Kim Stone gets all of the credit, but it feels good to be at this point in mid-November. When I took this job I thought that I’d find satisfaction raising money for very poor people, but I didn’t anticipate how passionate I would become as a result of getting to know some of the women personally. I spent the past couple of weeks in the States doing fund raising events. There was no escaping the sense of injustice between a society that has way too much compared to one that doesn’t have nearly enough.

Ellen and the girls continue to enjoy life here more each day. Ellen is working about half time working on grant proposals. Sadie and Hannah love their school, their teachers and their classmates. Tomorrow Hannah’s class gets to bring their pets to school for a Pet Parade. We have a new puppy called Nacho and Hannah is excited about taking him. The girls are fortunate in that both of their teachers enjoying doing little extra things like this to make things fun. In addition to working with a Spanish tutor three afternoons a week, they are also on a local swim team and practice 6 days a week. They’d be thrilled to move back to the States tomorrow, but they like it more each day here and I like to think that when the day comes to move back to the States they’ll be so happy here that they’ll have some resistance to the idea.