My first storm

It was actually entertaining. Basically after leaving the school under a 39 degree heat and laying in our hammock unable to move but thinking about going to the lake it started getting cool. I mean it's 3 o'clock in Thailand at the end of February? The temperature continued to go down as I was actually getting comfortable.

Just so we understand each other, I am never confortable after 9.30am because of the heat.

I started thinking it was going to rain and smiled. Then the sky's colour completely changed. There were dark gray clouds but the house looked like it was under a spotlight, if it was a Hollywood film we would have a UFO by then. As I moved from the hammock to see where the light was comming from, it slowly started to rain.

A few seconds later it was the heaviest downpour I ever saw. Even after seing rain in India I wondered where all the water was coming from.

About one minute later the lighting started, then the thunders. The lighting was so close that both me and the dogs jumped. Like the sissy that I am I put all metalic stuff on the table and went to the other side of the room. The thunder was so loud the doors shook. It was my first night alone in the house...

I then decided to watch a film with my flashlight in hand. I watched Slumdog and hated it (I read Q and A and liked it). When I got up I saw dozens of dead crickets, ants and other insects under my flip-flops and all around me. Frogs the size of my fingernails jumped all over the place. Dont these things ever knock and ask permission?

The next day the exact same scenario happened. Except that this time at 21h exactly the power went out. I insisted and tried reading the latest Saramago book (the elephant's trip(?)) with my flashlight. I really like the book but my eyes couldn't work under pressure. The book tells the story of an Indian elephant that was living in Lisbon in the 1500s when the Portuguese king decided to offer it to the archduke of Austria, the poor animal and a contingency walked from Lisbon until Wien. I was saving it for when I would be travelling around Asia but once I read the first page I was off... Oh, it's supposedly a true story, he just fictionized the details of the trip and the characters. I tried telling one my students what it was about but he walked away giggling. Once I figure out why I'll let you know.