Man, It’s raining something fierce over here. It’s awesome. My best piece of advice is don’t get anything wet, because it won’t dry out until March. It’s only been raining for two days straight, which doesn’t sound like much if you live in the Willamette Valley, but it’s hard rain, and we’re at sea level, so there aren’t too many places for the water to go. The sand bar outside my house looks like a river, and then the confluence between my street and the next main street is pretty impressive as well. The house on the corner has a steady stream of water going in to their yard, under their house (it’s on stilts for a reason), and they could float a boat no problem.

For fun the kids go outside and take each other shoes, and float them down the stream (street). It was raining enough on Thursday this week that school was let out early, just after 1^st period. Last time school was let out early on account of hard rain, teachers got together in their classrooms with a little food and some vodka and spent the afternoon drinking and eating. When they ran out of food, they told one of the kids to go get more food. They’ve got a pretty good system going on over here.

On my way into town today to post this blog I went through 4 towns. 2 of them were flooded, and all the rivers we drove past were flooding. 3 barangays (districts) have been evacuated in my town. The road was flooded over in several places on my way into town. The first van I was in turned around because there was too much water in the road. Fortunately, there was a jeepnee going where we wanted to go. So, eventually, I made it to town, and now I’m enjoying a raspberry shake and a wonderful cup of coffee in an orange polk-a-dotted cup.