The rainy season is upon us

Apparently umbrellas aren't just for tourists here

A little rain never stopped people from selling food in the park

When I first arrived in Xela it was winter. At night and in the morning it got incredibly cold...ok fine, it was like 0°C, but it felt really cold because in the afternoons it would warm up to 15-20°C. But during all of this time there was no rain. It snowed in San Marcos (a city about 2 hours away from Xela), and by snowed I mean there was maybe an inch of snow and it was all over the newspapers. Kinda like in western Washington. Anyways, in all the time I'd been here, it'd rained only a handful of times and only for about an hour and then it was done. Well all that has changed now. About 2 weeks ago it just started raining and it's been cloudy and drizzly with big passing thunderstorms ever since. Sure, there have been some sun breaks, but not like before. It's so weird that it will be sunny and then it starts sprinkling and before you know it you can't hear yourself think because the rain is so loud on the roof, not to mention the giant booms of thunder. I absolutely love it! I only wish I had brought my rain boots.
It's almost always drizzly in Tacoma, but there are hardly ever big downpours where it feels like the sky has to run out of water soon. A bright flash of lightning, closely followed by the huge boom of thunder. Here it's an every day occurrence. It's beautiful! Sure, walking to and from work from
where I catch the bus kind of sucks when it's dumping rain....especially when a car drives by just fast enough that the river running through the road decides it'd have more fun all over you, but hey, asi es la vida!
Apparently Guatemalan engineers don't know how to think ahead, however, so the drainage system is pretty non-existent. When it really rains the roads become mini-rivers that are impossible to cross without completely soaking at least one of your feet. But it's kinda fun making crossing the street a game: find the high spot in the road that's not yet submersed in water so you can cross without landing ankle-deep in a puddle.
I don't know why, but it's so beautiful to me how it can be sunny one second and then dumping rain and rolling thunder the next. When I was flying into Guatemala city for the first time by myself in December there was a lightning storm in the distance and I just watched it for the last half hour of my flight. It was amazing to just watch a chunk of the sky light up for a fraction of a second. Now when there's lightning it usually lights up the whole academy where I work, or the power goes out. It's a little alarming to be teaching a class at night and then it's like someone is flashing giant flood lights just outside the window, but it's amazing! Maybe it's that in Tacoma (where I've pretty much spent my entire life up until this point) there's hardly ever lightning. It makes the front page of the Tribune when there is (you know the picture I'm talking about, a big lightning bolt in the sky with the Narrows Bridge in the background...same one every time). So even though it happens every day here, I'm still amazed by it every time. I'm still amazed by how incredible loud the rain can be, especially at my weekend spot in Malacatan.
What about you? Is there something that you encounter frequently but it still manages to sweep you off your feet every time?