The Internet has gone down but I have to document this for posterity and somehow get it up later. It’s 9pm thursday night. A massive lightning storm has hit. The rain is so hard it’s coming through the roof of the temple and blowing in from the sides. A search party went out to assess the situation. The roads are washing away. There is a river where the road was, so strong you can go rafting on it. We’re on the side of a volcano. You can hear rocks landsliding boom boom boom! The lightning stretches across the entire horizon and is constant. It feels like we’re in the middle of a giant version of those weird electric zappy balls.

We’re all huddled in the centre laughing and hanging out waiting for the storm to clear a little so we can clean up the outdoor kitchen and go to bed. A scraggly joint is being passed around eliciting wild and amazing stories.

As if all this isn’t strange enough, young, natural, strikingly beautiful women have slipped out of their soaked clothes and are running around stark naked in the rain trying to get a tarp up, laughing and squealing. And my belly is full of local dark chocolate and giggles. I LOVE this lightning.

I really am in heaven.

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Update: the roads washed away leaving canyons and boulders from the volcanic landslide. The “municipal” water pipes also got smushed so we have no water. But the Internet is back up! And Kalima made some beautiful art on me today.

“La vida no es esperar a que la tormenta pase… Es aprender a bailar bajo la lluvia”

(Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.”)