Rainy Season

June has been the start of the rainy season in the north of Costa Rica. Of course, because of the micro-climates that the country has, each region experiences the change in seasons differently. You see, true rainy season for the majority of the country doesn't really start until late summer or early fall in the States. Here, however, it never really ends.

My host father described the dry season in the northern provinces perfectly one day when he said,
 "There will be absolutely no rain for three months. Totally dry."
I: "Wow, no rain at all?"
He: "None"
I: "What happens to all your crops? Do you have to bring water in from the river?"
He: "Sometimes, but it's not that important."
I: "How do all your crops survive with no water?"
He: "Oh,  it rains at night, of course."

And so you have an accurate description of the weather in northern Alajuela province. It rains all the time.

So, when I say that we had the start of the rainy season this month, what I really mean is that we've gone from midnight sprinkles to late afternoon torrential downpours. It just gets so hot during the day that the rising hot air creates some serious thunderstorms as the day tries to cool down around four or five o'clock.
...And in Costa Rica, they don't mess around with their thunderstorms. It gets so loud in the house from the falling rain that Melana and I cannot understand each other even if we're yelling while standing right next to each other.
The rain might be loud, but nothing compares to the lightning strikes that can happen all around us and the thunder that follows it, sometimes only barely. Often, when there is flooding in town, we lose electricity and huddle excitedly in the darkness and watch the flashing sky as the rain around us turns into an indistinguishable rush of sound. This auditory overload coupled with the near visual black out seems to turn our little wooden house in the jungle into a ship adrift in stormy seas.

It is not often in the more developed parts of the world that nature snatches from us all distraction and forces us to face it head on. When it does, the circumstances are often so dire that fear and tragedy become the prominent distractions. But when, as in our situation, our modern diversions are pulled from us at low enough a threshold as to withhold any real threat of mortal peril, nature reveals itself to be a thing a great beauty, even in the darkest of storms.