Cock-a-doodle-doo

Time seems to be going by very quickly as a teacher here, even though every day seems like two because I sleep twice.

I´ve actually surprised myself by my ability to get up at half five in the morning, although it doesn´t always go to plan. Earlier this week I overslept and was woken up by John and Nicole, my colleagues from Australia, who had to wake up the whole house to get in and bang on my door. I felt quite bad about this, so the next morning I took no chances and got up early after an early night. I was cleaning my teeth when I thought I heard the doorbell. Even though I was sure it was indeed nice and early I knew there was a possibility that my alarm clock was wrong so I went to check. I peered round the threshold into the street and with a thud the door slammed shut behind me. I stood there for a few moments wondering how it is possible for any one person to be quite so stupid. The rain was coming down heavily at this point and the only other people in the street were a couple of homeless chaps who blinked at me from their cardboard nests over the road. I don´t suppose it´s every day that the light of dawn reveals a barefooted Englishman in a Jesus T-shirt waving his arms in self-recrimination and spraying toothpaste foam onto the pavement. I had to trot through the running rainwater to the main hostel and get a spare key. With my toothbrush still in my mouth the lady on the night desk took some time to work out what I was talking about - I´m not sure my mimes helped much. She must have wondered why I´d decided to treat her to a Mr Bean impression quite so early in the morning.

The weather here recently has been quite bad - lots and lots of rain. I´ve asked a few people when the better weather should arrive. They tell me there´s a Bogotano expression that in April it rains "a thousand". Even though it´s now May, they explain, it´s still only rained five hundred. They have also said that last year there wasn´t a summer at all and it rained solidly until Christmas. But I don´t really mind it - I can still look back to those buses in Central America where in scorching heat I kept myself going by fantasising about April showers.