Rain, rain, don’t go away! I know you won’t come again another day.

Perhaps a better title for this blog entry is: The Weather in Southern Peru

I have been living in Alto Cayma for almost three months, and I have experienced exactly seven minutes of light drizzle. In North Carolina, we would call this a drought of epic proportions. In Arequipa, Peru, we call this normal. The weather here is a little different than what I’m used to. While you in the United States are in the middle of fall, the people in Peru are in the middle of spring. While you are cooling down, we are just starting to heat up.

As I was thinking about the differences in seasons today, it occurred to me that this is my year without an autumn. I experienced the end of winter and springtime in Slovakia, summer for three weeks in the US and then I came to South America for the tail end of their Peruvian winter. Now it’s springtime for me until December, when I will return to the US in time for another winter.
The sun in Alto Cayma is very, very strong. The skies are always blue, but there isn’t much cloud cover. Because most of the land is sandy, the sun reflects off the ground and, at times, makes sunburns inevitable. I am always a little pink after a day in the sun ---- and that’s with a sombrero and sunscreen. If I don’t have my hat and I am outside for more than twenty minutes, I will have a sunburn by evening.

Today is one of those rare days where the sky is a little grey, and it looks like it could rain. I am hoping for, praying for and dreaming of rain : ).