Blustery Days of Our Lives; or, Sands Through an Hourglass

In the words of Pooh, it was a "rather blustery day." Make that two or three of them.

For a few days, we were at what's known as "COR III" for hurricane readiness. COR III this time around meant we were not in the direct line of the projected hurricane, but we got a tremendous amount of wind and rain. 

Watching hurricanes is always in the back of our minds since we got here; after all, Hurricane Sandy hit a few days after I arrived. 

According to Weather Underground, in September we got 0.41 inches of rain. August we got 0.8 inches, and July, 0.26". And on and on. You get the picture. For the last year, the forecast has been: arid, dusty, with a rather miserable amount of humidity. Two days before the storms hit, the heat index was 104º.

Then we got our first measurable rainfall in over a year. It was exciting. The kids at school literally jumped out of their seats and to the door before I could say anything. One student pointed and kept stammering, "Whhhhaaaat is thaaat?" I am serious. That stuff falling from the sky is rain, y'all! Everyone driving Jeeps, the unofficial vehicle of GTMO, realized that they were going to have a very wet ride home. Roads and sidewalks were temporarily flooded, the ceiling in my classroom started leaking, and sandbags were out. I'm happy about the change in temperature, but I can do without the howling wind and sideways rain.

Sirens go off and we get base-wide announcements on a PA system, or as most people here call it, "The Big Voice." The problem is you can't understand it. At neither work nor home can I actually hear it for the pouring rain. It's like Charlie Brown's teacher: Wuh Wah Wah wuh wuh wah.  Like so much here, you depend on word of mouth. People are very dependable about letting everyone know what's going on. 

Preparations included moving potted plants and anything else that can fly around the backyard onto the back porch and taking the bottles off of the bottle tree. My sweet little trees I transplanted from our Nob Hill house, including 2 that were from a cutting of the Truffula Tree, are now blown almost completely down. I'm going to wait until the rain passes to stake them back down again. 

Now for the aftermath---I'll put the bottles back out and stake up the tree when it's a little drier out.
The Commissary has been out of any edible produce for four days now. Supposedly we'll get some tomorrow. My son's SAT test this weekend has been put on indefinite hold; he couldn't take it Saturday because they couldn't unpack the barge container that housed the tests due to rain; Saturday they didn't unpack it due to wind, so he couldn't take it on Sunday, either. Now he is at the mercy of College Board as to if he can take it at all in October, or just scratch that and take it for November's test day (hopefully). Life is complicated when you are isolated and have freaky weather.

We did go for a ride around base, and stopped at Ferry Landing. Here is is, April 2013:

The sidewalk above has at regular intervals three stairs that go to the sand.

Or at least it did have sand. Here is one of the staircases this morning:

And here is Ferry Landing. Lots of big rocks, but no beach whatsoever:

They will bring sand back in, just like they did with Hurricane Sandy, and all will be normal (or as "normal" as you can be in a place where the beach washes away).

Today marks 3 years that we announced to everyone that we were moving to Cuba. It's been a crazy, wild ride. I didn't dream I'd live somewhere where keeping a hurricane kit is normal, or running out of basic food items is normal. I didn't think I'd be chasing iguanas or tarantulas at work, or dodging huge rodents in the road at night. It's been in many ways a new life, one of frustrations and joys, disappointments and life-long friendships. The one thing it's never been is boring.