wacky weather and a japanese night

Sadly, we don't have fall here in El Salvador, nor do the leaves change colors. However, the winds will pick up at the end up the month, the temperature will drop down a few degrees, giving a little bit of relief after months of strong heat (just cool enough to have an excuse to finally wear long sleeves for a day or two, and just cool enough to make cold showers in the morning a little painful!) Rainy season also ends in October, but it doesn't go away without putting up a good fight! There are always days on end in October that pass without the rain letting up, and turns out we are having one of those storms this week. Actually I think they have declared it a tropical depression. The bad thing about these really rainy days is that our country is very fragile in this aspect. We don't have the proper infrastructure to drain off all that rain, so lots of flooding happens as well as landslides. Even here in the city, there are areas that become really dangerous. Here are some pictures from today's newspaper: It rained so much yesterday that they cancelled school for today and tomorrow (well, us teachers still have workdays). The funny thing is though, that as soon as we finished calling all of the parents, the sun came out and it hasn't rained again! So, it's a win-win situation...no class, and no more danger for those affected by the rains!

So, to celebrate no classes, and to celebrate that tomorrow is our 3 year anniversary of getting engaged =), elvis and i had a japanese day: first, we went to a cute little japanese restaurant (good, but i'm still disappointed we can't find that pink sauce they serve at japanese restaurants at home which we ate by the bucketfuls in college!) Then, tonight we went to a free concert of a jazz trio sponsored by the Japanese embassy. It was really interesting and a great mix of cultures: a awesome Japanese jazz pianist who now lives in New York but also studies drumming in Africa; a 62 year old Japanese guitar player who has won the "world's best jazz guitarist" award several years, and a vocalist from Africa who has a 4 octave singing range, who also played different African drums. He also used pretty much every part of his body as a percussion instrument, and sings for "Dora the Explorer". It was a great mix of jazz, Japanese melodies, and African rhythms. Plus they threw in a traditional Salvadorean song! It was really neat.

So, we were leaving the parking lot, and apparently this lady didn't see us, and backed into us, moving at about 5 mph. The thing about cars here in El Salvador is that pretty much nobody has car insurance (including us), so if you get into a fenderbender (which happens pretty regularly), you just get out and settle it with the person right then and there, and they pay you on the spot what you think is fair. Also, pretty much the laws go that even if it wasn't your fault, if the other person gets hurt worse, its your fault. That's pretty much why I don't drive here. So anyways, the lady gets out, says "oops", and gives us $20 on the spot. I mean, let's be serious. We probably aren't going to go to the shop and get that little dent out, so we were pretty excited about earning 20 bucks so fast! hehe, we were thinking up more ways to use our car to make money. PS, our car's name is Cecilia, the Sentra. Thanks, Ceci, for taking one for the team!