The First Rain!

Yesterday was the first real rain of the season here at IMAP, ending six months of extreme dryness. This microclimate around the lake and all the various bioregions throughout the country will soon transform into a lush paradise capable of bountiful harvests. Then, just as abruptly as it started, the celestial tap will be shut off for another six months, and the hard working farmers of Mesoamerica will return to more labor intensive irrigation methods. Only 12 hours after this humbling and equivocal downpour, our many varieties of flowers and vegetables, from the orchids to the coffee, have livened their proud stances in the gardens in a way that the daily offerings of the hose could not provide. The sprouting plants, Calendula and White Mans Footprint, stand with a small but sturdy frame like that of their Guatemalan counterparts, and leaves that rest on their haunches like the limbs of an onlooking farmer surveying his plot after a hard days work.