Rain, rain, gone away?

My routine each morning, for now anyway, is to rise around 6 am, make a cup of coffee and watch CBC's "The National." CBC is an acronym for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada's equivalent to Great Britain's BBC.

At the end of "The National's" daily broadcast there is a report on Canada's weather for the next few days. It is at this point that I switch to the Environment Canada website and look at the seven day forecast for Nanaimo, BC, where my son and grandchildren live, and Winnipeg Manitoba, where I spent most of my adult life.

I have a MacBook Pro, which means I have a dashboard. After looking at the weather in Nanaimo and Winnipeg I open my dashboard and look at the forecast for Oaxaca. Oaxaca's weather, compared to Canada's weather, including the mild west coast of the country, could be described as . . .well, consistent. We are in the rainy season, so everyday the forecast was rain with noonday temperatures of 28 C. It was the amount of rain that was so extraordinary.

Rain is necessary to sustain life, I know this, I don't care, I pretty much hate rain. I love sun. Tuesday, September 28 I could no longer stand the frequent torrents of water pouring from the sky, the ceaseless dark unbroken clouds and the drizzle that existed when the torrents broke. I gave in and fell into a state of inertia. Then the rain stopped.

I watched the clouds in the sky during the first week of October, at first numerous and large, now virtually non existent. As for the forecast on my dashboard - sun, sun and more sun with temperatures from 24 C to 28 C. Perhaps the dry season has arrived an early this year, normally November marks the end of the rain. I can only hope.

Rain

It's been very hot the last few days. Chihuahua, where I lived for nine months, has a dry desert heat that doesn't bother me. Oaxaca is another story, the muggy heat of this place makes me both sweat and yawn.

It's usually a little after 1 pm when I get home from my Spanish class where I study, and my English class where I teach. I have the whole afternoon to study Spanish, prepare classes and write.

During the last few days the heat has made me so tired I haven't been able to think, to make matters worse, it's been so hot I have been able to sleep.

This morning I awoke to a downpour. It has cooled things off, for the time being. I'm sitting at my computer and a cool tropical breeze is drifting through the open windows and door.

I'm from Vancouver Canada. I hate rain. I never thought I'd see the day when I'd welcome it.

I was talking to my friend Ruth, she has lived in Oaxaca all of her life. I rent my bungalow from her, she said they were also hot in their place and suggested I open the windows to create a breeze. I told her all the windows were open and that I had left the door open as well.

As I walked away I turned around, "This is unusual isn't it?" I asked.

"It's the climate, it's changing," she said.

When mama Ruth, daughter Ruth and I drove by the river that runs through Oaxaca a week or so ago the Ruths told me it use to be a very big river, but there hasn't been any water in the river for the last thirty years.