This week it misted for 2 nights and a day! You might not think this such a big deal, but the ladies that meet weekly at our house did! The meeting was canceled due to the ‘rain’ and we heard stories of people’s struggles thoughout the rest of the week. We live near the Atacama desert. Most have heard of the Sahara desert, but did you know that the Atacama is even drier? The mist our town received this week added up to about 1cm which is more than we’ve seen cumulatively since arriving here two years ago even though it’s cloudy and humid most of the winter.
So what does one do when it rains? Everyone had buckets out to catch the drips, some had to empty theirs quite often! We also had buckets on our ‘roof’ which is really a half-open 3rd floor where do our laundry, hang our clothes and have a little shop bench. There is a spot where the roof comes together tilting inward on both sides with a drain pipe in between which doesn’t necessarily catch all the run off so we put out buckets to reduce the need for mopping. We look at it and say, ‘Bad design!’, but who cares when it only rains once a year!?
Here there's no street drainage so we got puddles!
