Rain, Holidays, and New Books!

"When it rains it pours." Indeed.
Two nights in a row it rained, actually it poured. And whenever it rains here there is thunder and lightening to accompany it. On the first night, the thunder was so loud and so close that I stayed awake in bed whispering "Allah'u'abha" for a few minutes, until it moved off. It was scary. There is in fact a prayer that can be said during upsetting natural occurences, but I didn't have a prayerbook handy, and as usual during rain, the power was out anyway. The next it rained again, but the thunder stayed further off. It continued raining that morning, and it was quite cool. I was so excited! I dug out my jacket, removed the lining, found my thickest pair of socks, donned my Tilley hat (its water resistant) and went out into the rain. It wasn't really pouring at this point, but it was still steady. I had to go around the "Lake Latri-Kunda", as I like to call it, and up to the market to get my morning Topolopa because the lake had prevented my local vendor from receiving his morning shipment. I quite enjoyed the walk in the cool, wet air, and actually strolled right up to the highway. Because of the rain, people were just starting to setup in the market, so I was able to walk about without having to work my way through a thousand people. The temperature was perfect for what I was wearing :)
Last Thursday and Friday, and this Monday, Thursday and Friday were all declared Holidays because of the African Union (AU) Summit that is taking place. Because I don't have any classes on Wednesdays, I have taught only one day in the last week! Fortunately I had borrowed a whole bunch of books from Bob and Barbara Arrington on Sunday, so I had lots to do. I started by reading "The Priceless Pearl", a Baha'i book about the life of The Guardian. It was really amazing; there were stories and events described in that book that I had never heard about. It again made me realize what an amazing history the Faith has.
After that I read three books by Bernard Cornwall; "The Winter King", "The Enemy of God" and "Excalibur", all of them were about King Arthur, but were written more like historical fiction that fantasy, and all of them were wonderful. I will defintly be wanting to get ahold of my own copies once I return to Canada; these are books I will for sure read again. After that I started reading "Dune", a book I know Megan loves, but which I have not bothered to read until now. To be honest, all I've done for the last two days is read - but I'm enjoying it!
Still waiting are two Anne Mccaffrey books, although I can't right now remember the names.
Tonight we were supposed to have a fireside here at the Shams' house, but because the Bronze metal World Cup game was on, we all ended up watching that instead. At half time we said some prayers. haha.
I have been using insecticide in the house to try and keep the bugs out - and to kill ones I find. I also spray it on my mosquito net so the bloody things won't bite me through the net; I've woken up many times with three or four bites on my elbow because it happened to push against the net during the night. arg. Dad laughs at me when I talk to him and says that all the sunscreens, bug repellent and insecticides mean I'll probably die when I'm 30, but they keep me healthy right now. The thing is: he's probably right! The insecticide has about 3 warnings on it to cover or remove fish bowls in the area you are spraying, because for sure it will kill the fish!
Just a note about the first two pictures. They are the front and back of my T-shirt, just after having biked home. The backside (the second picture) it not from rain... the dark spot is caused by my backpack resting against me. You will no doubt find it disgusting, as do I, but profuse sweating is part of life here, so I thought I'd get a picture of it :P