Tropical school pick up

Some days it seems the sky just opens up and rains.  I mean downpour rain right when school lets out. Each kid is required to have a rain jacket in their backpack and for good reason. It rains almost every afternoon here in Mayaguez. We are on the wet end of the island after all.

My kid’s school is awesome. We love it.  It’s on a little dead-end road in the middle of the mountain.  There’s a gate across the road that closes during school hours.  The houses on that little street all belong to the school’s leader, who still lives at the end of the street. The two houses closest to the street have been converted to the school.

There’s not really a parking lot (spot for maybe three cars) and really no good way for the cars to get in and out for drop off and pick up time. So we all wait on the little Mountain Road that’s barely wide enough for cars to pass each other on. Three cars go in at a time in the little roundabout, schlep our kids in or out of the car, we drive out of the gate and three more cars can come in. Rain makes this go extra slow. The cars who don’t care about the school and just want to pass on the road have to drive on the left lane and hope that there aren’t any cars coming right at them from around the switchback nearby. There’s a lot of horn blowing (“hey! Anyone coming don’t hit me!”)

 The fearless leader of the school does a good job of directing traffic and telling people when it’s clear that they can drive on the left side of the road or when they’re about to be hit head on by another car. It’s a little bit like a circus. But it works and we get the job done if we’re patient.   Oh and did I mention the mud? I’ll write another blog post about it but Puerto Rican dirt is red. And when it gets wet it just turns into red mud and that gets all over your car. And it stains.

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on a dry day

 

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5 Responses to Tropical school pick up

  1. Cassie says:

    Craziness! The aguaceros here can be intense. We’ve been stuck in a few. It seems like every time we go to Mayaguez in the pm we get in some rain but when we get home it’s dry! It must be just a little rainier in Mayaguez than even just over here in Rincon.

    Oh and the dirt in Puerto Rico is not all red. There are quite a few different soil types. But the red stuff has a lot of clay and iron in it which is good for certain plants like citrus.

  2. Dan K says:

    Hopefully the rains will make it to this side of the island soon. We’re still on water rations here in San Juan!!

  3. I’m amazed hiw the rain system works here. We can see the ‘Mayaguez monster’ building here in Isabela but 9 times out of 10 it’ll vimpltely miss the east side of isabela (where we live) but soak everything closer to Aguadilla. And no red mud here, thankfully! Stay dry chica! 😉

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