Some Weather We're Having

It's been a while since I posted, so here's a funny story.

When I first arrived in El Paso, I was greeted with a rainy weekend. It wasn't a big deal, but I quickly learned how much people here appreciate rain. It's a desert and most of the time one of the sunniest places in the country. It's even been nicknamed 'Sun City'. The place doesn't really know how to cope with rain, because they're not used to it, so on that drizzly Saturday morning I tried to take a walking tour, businesses and restaurants were shut down, a farmers market cancelled, and essentially every conversation was focused on the weather. When the rain stopped but the clouds lingered, all I could hear was what a nice day it was.

That's right: cloudy days are nice days, especially in the summer, and everyone congregates outside to celebrate not being burned to a crisp. They rejoice at how green everything is going to be, and in truth the sandy landscape did become a bit more vibrant. Still, after that first rainstorm all I could hear was how strange it was.

It's essentially the weather opposite of Ireland, where it's almost always raining and sunny days are a cause for huge excitement.

As much as I was reassured that the rain was most unusual, and I'd miss it soon enough, this has been a particularly rough 'monsoon season' for El Paso. And every time you think "surely that's the end of it", there comes another midnight rainstorm and cars crash and teachers at school are told not to mark anyone late because of flooding on the highways.

Since I live right next to my workplace, this hasn't had any sort of substantial impact on my commute. The biggest difficulty I've faced from the rain was about a week ago, when the gymnasium of the school took on a lot of water somehow. The weight room was flooding, and I was called in to help sweep everything out before it infiltrated the beautiful new hardwood floor in the main gym, recently completed and a big source of pride for the school community.

If you've ever had to do emergency flood control before, you'll know it's not the most satisfying task. I don't mind doing manual labor, and while transporting the sandbags from one side of the school to the other was difficult, it was easy to see our progress. Sweeping out the water, though, seemed Sisyphean at times. Each big push of water out the door just made way for more to fill up down the hallway, seep into a nearby locker room, and in general swill around my flip-flopped feet.

It was dirty, it was tiring, and it was yet another unexpected task in my volunteer time. In a way I had to laugh and remember how during orientation they told us to be prepared for everything. I don't know what other surprise natural disasters will come my way, but I'm trying to take it each one week at a time. The gym was saved though, and that was a great feeling. It makes for a funny memory too, I think!

The moral of the story: if anyone tells you it never rains in El Paso, they are either lying or have been hibernating this summerfall.