Here comes the rain.

Rainy season is coming. The past two days it's begun to sprinkle a bit in the afternoons, and my informants tell me this signals that daily showers can pretty much be expected from here on out. This was confirmed by my taxi driver today, who got a huge smile on his face when he needed to turn on the windshield wipers. He said he loves water so "winter" is his favorite part of the year; he gleefully told me it lasts until September.

I didn't take full advantage of the good weather while it was here. I tried to do a lot but there were plenty of Saturday mornings I slept in or wrote emails instead of enjoying my pool. As of now, my swimming count for the year is: one time. I tried to go today, but it's a little cold and while waiting for the sun to warm my up enough to go in, I fell asleep on the edge. I woke up a little later, freaked out a bit when I saw how close I was to the water, and went inside and fell asleep on the couch for two hours. Sorry Alex. (Alex was over to swim and I abandoned him for the nap; he must have sort of liked the idea because he is now sleeping on my bed.)

I also realized today that, like with the perfect sunny days, I didn't take full advantage of the newness of being here. I've stopped seeing things the way I did when I first got here; I'm used to it, as you may be able to tell by my drop off in blog posts. I have to look harder to see things than I did my first month here.

I've also noticed that I have to start working harder at friendship. There is definitely a grace period when you enter a new situation (especially something like moving to a new country) where making friendships and building them is easier. Unlike the tales from elementary school books, everyone is actually pretty nice to the new girl. They want you to feel comfortable and know you have friends even though it feels like you're starting out with no one.

But then you get used to being around each other, you run out of easy things to say, you run out of thoughtless things to do. Suddenly the amount of real investment you've put in the relationship stares you in the face and you realize that you have to try in order to progress. It's worth it, no doubt. You need people in your daily life who will get excited with you about lame thing just because you're excited. Who will stick around when you're not funny or even when you're grumpy and say things you don't mean to say, or did mean to say but in completely the wrong way. But it's not easy getting to that level. I'm really bad at it, actually.

Basically all this to say I miss my family and friends who will put up with me no matter what, and am very thankful for the grace I'm finding as I try to build a new support system here in Guatemala. More sunny days than rainy ones so far.