La lluvia

(Sunday, August 24th) So it never rains in La Paz, except when there’s a hurricane. When I asked the advance team if we needed a rainy day plan for any of our activities, they laughed… until tropical storm Julio started rolling in yesterday. Our show was in a baseball stadium, and we built a stage basically on second base. Because its 110 degrees here everyday, we were worried about our equipment being too hot to function properly. That turned out to not be a problem at all, since it started to rain right when we started our afternoon rehearsal. It sprinkled through most of the afternoon, and rained hard enough for us to stop and get offstage for a little while. The tech team was busy all day… moving tents over speaker towers and wrapping lighting trusses in tarp. There was a canopy onstage all afternoon over the band. When the rain got heavy, all the microphones were covered with plastic bags, and the stage was full of gravelly mud from the baseball field. Thankfully, by some miracle, it cleared up about two hours before our show and was dry through the evening.

Our biggest problem during the show was that the air was steamy and humid, and dancers kept losing their grip because they were so sweaty!

We awoke this morning (Sunday) to a gray, steady rain. It cooled the temperature to about 90 degrees, and though our beach and boating plans were foiled, we instead got to relax around the house, and had a fabulous pool party in the rain with our host parents’ grandchildren. Every Sunday their children and grandkids come over and make a big lunch… we had a mix of Italian, Lebanese and Mexican food (since two of the daughters lived for awhile in Italy, and hostmom Magui’s family is from Lebanon). Caprese salad, shrimp and fish ceviche, spaghetti la carbonera and a homemade red sauce with a little bit of cream cheese. Also jocoque (which is like Lebanese sour cream- I don’t know the English word) with pita chips and salami. We ate and swam, and had diving contests, races, did cartwheels into the pool, played marco polo and “Tiburon” (shark!), and just had a wonderful day… and tomorrow we’re off to Los Cabos!