It's raining.

Tropical rain isn't anything like European rain. It's not cold, for a start, there's none of that freezing drizzle that bites into your skin and makes you huddle inside your anorak. You can go out in the rain here and actually stay under it for as long as you wish, it really isn't cold. The cold comes if there's wind, or if you come into an air-conditioned room once you're soaking wet.

Because soaking wet you inevitably become. There aren't stages of rain here, going from "hang on, I think I felt a drop" to "oh dear, how am I going to go out?". As soon as the rain starts and until it finishes, it's full-on get-me-out-of-here downpour which creates torrents of rain anywhere the land dips, along the sides of roads (and often into the middle as well), filling gutters and so on.

The rain also seems to have a rather large array of consequences here. At school, the children suddenly decide it's not worth getting wet to come into lessons. Therefore, if it rains in the morning for example, I get a slew of late notes in the afternoon saying "it was raining". Yes, well, I noticed that. It was raining when I came in too. "Ah, yes miss, but I couldn't come because of the rain". Now that's helpful. If it starts raining during a lesson, you hear it before you see it, because it comes pounding down on the iron roofs. All of a sudden, half of the class gets up and runs to the windows. "Miss, the rain", they say. "So what?" "Miss, the rain, it's falling." Again, thank you for that helpful comment.

It's not only the kids, though. I had a dentist appointment at half past two the other day. Got there half an hour before, saw that the opening hour was half past two and waited quietly in the car. Half past two came and went, still the door stayed firmly shut. At three o'clock, I rang them up just to check either I or they hadn't done something silly such as mix the days up. The conversation went something like this:

"Hello. I had an appointment at 2.30 and the door is still locked. Do you think you could let me in?"

"Madam, I don't think we will work this afternoon. It's raining. You must ask for another appointment."

"Oh. In that case, when could I have another appointment please?"

"Next week there is no space, but the week after, you can come."

"Right. If it should rain again, do you think you could warn me so that I don't have to drive for 45 minutes to come?"

"But madam, it's not my fault. It's the rain. I didn't know it would rain."

Later that same day, I had a lesson with my English conversation group. Theoretically. In practice, one of them called me ten minutes before, saying that there was an enormous traffic jam and that she probably wouldn't be able to arrive on time. The cause of the traffic jam? I'll give you three guesses. The students contacted each other and the same one called me back half an hour later, saying that they had all decided to abandon ship and turn back.

I used to love the rain. Now, it seems more like a tropical curse. Humph.