Rain and a Holiday

Much to my chagrin, I see that it has been almost 2 months since my last post. I doubt that many of you have been waiting with bated breath, but my inactivity is still lame. My lack of activity has not been due to any absence of content to write about but rather an excess of it. Some of the highlights since my last post include early service training, a holiday (Diwali, pictured below), shark diving, boredom at work, and the cruel realization of the fact that the tropical summer, in all its humid glory, is only beginning.

It would seem that the rainy season started today. Since I got to Labasa just over 4 months ago, it has rained fairly often. However, when it did rain, it did so for a relatively brief time. Today was different. I have started the habit of going running at dawn, as it is the coolest time time of the day, but not today. It was overcast, humid, and hot. By the time I got home it had started to sprinkle. It has been raining since then. That was fifteen hours ago. Now that may not seem very remarkable, and in all honesty it isn't. This side of the island is much dryer than the south side though, and it rains there daily. We get rain about once a week for an hour or so in the afternoon. Not fifteen hours straight. This satellite feed isn't encouraging. So, its wet here. I'll leave it at that. I don't really know what to think about the fact that I just wrote a paragraph regarding it raining all day, so I'll change the subject.

Diwali (the Hindi festival of lights) was at the end of last month. It doesn't fall on a specific date, but rather on the night of the new moon between mid-October and mid-November. Participants light small lamps to welcome the goddess Lakshmi into their homes, set off fireworks to ward off evil spirits, and invite friends over for dinner and Indian sweets. The sweets are delicious. It feels a lot like the 4th of July with all the fireworks going off, but a little gnarlier. They sell pretty big fireworks here, and people don't always point them straight up. Having a massive, rose-colored mortar detonate twenty feet over your head is a really good way to ward off evil spirits apparently. Tinnitus aside, it was beautiful. Most people go to as many of their friends houses as they can, I only went to one though. I'm still not very good at socializing with large groups of locals, so I did my best to avoid house-hopping. Hopefully by Diwali next year I'll be comfortable enough to take full advantage of all the free sweets...

Roman candles lighting up the sky on Diwali