The Fishers in La Paz, Bolivia

We arrived back to La Paz in summer, which means the height of rainy season. Thankfully, here it does not rain as much as in the tropical regions. We have nice bits of pleasant, sunny weather almost every day, but the tricky part is predicting when those brief times may occur. The weather is a bigger influence on our lives here for two reasons: lack of a car and lack of a clothes dryer! Since we don’t have a TV and the local news isn’t really online here, we have to judge the likely weather possibilities without the assistance of your typical local meteorologist. You can check the weather online for La Paz, but the readings are taken at the airport, which is at a much higher altitude than we are. Usually, the weather is totally different, with the temps at our house being 10 to 20 degrees higher here in the South Zone.

I had promised myself I would never leave the house without a rain jacket during this time of year, but yesterday morning I was seduced by the bright, clear skies into thinking there was no way it could rain before I got home at 1:00. So I very wisely wore a white shirt and headed out with no sweater, no coat, no poncho, etc. You can guess the end of this story. . . it started pouring rain about 11:30, and I was only saved from embarrassment from some friends who were visiting the school. They gave me a ride to pick up Avery and then took us to our apartment, so I didn’t have to stand outside waiting for two different taxis. (Just so you don’t think I’m a neglectful mother, I did actually at least send a sweater to school with Avery!)

Then there’s the fun game we get to play that I like to call “Laundry Roulette”. We are thankful to have our own washing machine that is off of a private courtyard that is great for hanging laundry most of the year, just not right now. It really is best to hang the laundry outside even if it is cloudy, but the key is knowing when to take the risk and when to play it safe.  It’s a darned if you do, darned if you don’t kind of situation. If you decide to just keep the laundry on a rack inside, then it is very likely your jeans will not be dry for three days and whatever outfit Avery wants to wear will still be damp, which will cause day-long dramatic whining. If you leave the laundry out, and you get distracted and don’t notice that it raining, then of course, you are left with sopping wet clothes and the frustration of starting all over again with the drying process. I have debates with myself about whether or not washed clothes that get rained on are still clean. I think about all that acid rain they used to talk about in the nineties getting on our clothes, but then I usually decide that I can’t afford to waste anymore time washing them again so I just wring them out and hope for a few sunny hours to erase the results of the unfortunate decision to leave the laundry outside.

So I’ve decided when we live in the States, I should never take my car or my dryer for granted again!