Bridge Over the River Macuilxochitl

Thank you hurricane Matthew. You have really made my life more adventurous.

Hurricanes on the coast translate into tropical storms on the mainland. Saturday night the rains started. They ended up last until early Tuesday morning. It was nice to go to sleep to the sound of rain at night. However, the ground is over saturated with water already from all the rain we have had the past few weeks. I imagined coming to Mexico and keeping my summer tan and just living in a world with sun. Those dreams are pretty much over. I am white. Very white. There really hasn't been much sun since I got here a month and a half ago. :( Very sad about this. Whenever there is sun, I try and go sit in it as much as I can.

There have been many interesting repercussions because of the 48+ hours of rain we received last weekend.

1. There was a village originally reported to have 1000 people dead and a few hundred more missing. When in actuality, there were only 4 people dead, 12 missing and 300 homes completely covered in a mudslide. This happened in a village about 5 hours from here with a very strange name.

2. The President of Mexico circled above us in his helicopter.

3. Trees have been falling over because the water has washed away the dirt that they hang on to.

4. Several rivers have risen so high they have washed away the bridges that went across them.

5. The federal highway that was blocked last week had a major bridge over the river Macuilxochitl crack. (don't ask me how to pronounce that, I have NO earthly idea). ;)

6. This bridge cracked after I had driven across it in the 15-passenger van with students in it.

7. We were all at school when we found out the way home was not passable due to the bridge being broken.

8. All the people who lived in Mitla had to leave at lunch time so we would be able to take a detour home and hopefully get back before dark.

9. I didn't get to teach my music classes that day even though I went in to school because my classes are after lunch.

10. We drove through 3 mountain passes.

11. The roads were washed away in several places and we had to drive through on a non-existent road.

12. It took us 2 hours to take the long way home and we made it safely.

13. The puddles and lakes formed by the rain have created a massive amount of mosquitos. I have too many bites to count.

14. We have been walking across the broken bridge to get to school.

15. They are letting small cars drive across.

16. The crack is getting bigger and the bridge is leaning more and more every day.

17. I was told to expect to take the long way around again at some point before this is all over.

18. Still not exactly sure what the plan is this week for getting in to school.

19. Not exactly sure what they are doing about the bridge.

20. Tropical storm Nicole might dump more rain on us.

I am told that here in Mitla we don't need to worry about mudslides because we are surrounded by mountains of rock.