Yesterday a tropical depression settled over Guatemala and it's been raining pretty constantly for 24 hours. Whenever that happens, all heck breaks loose. The Inter-American highway has several landslides again, towns are flooding, people are trapped, hurt, and there's a national alert. I made sure to call Mimi and family out in Venecia, on the Pacific coast, and they have been picking everything off the ground in their house, including the new refrigerator.

We're ok here, no worries. But not far from here where the roads are dirt, houses are made of sticks and mud, well there's problems again. It's frustrating how rain ruins so much here. The government just does not invest in roads or safe dwellings for people. Every year the Inter-American is blocked by landslides and people get hurt or die. And every year they get a bunch of dudes in bulldozers to move the mud over to one side of the road and that's it.

When I start to realize it's been raining for more than a few hours, I wonder what havoc is happening somewhere else. Last night I couldn't really sleep until 3 am. It's unnerving to hear so much rain. Obviously, being from Seattle long bits of rain is no big deal. But here you know it's causing probs.

I feel lucky to be in a pretty safe house, spend the day knitting and doing homework.