Well here’s something that hardly ever happens in Ecuador. A hailstorm! The November group came in with a bang! So big that most of them had to carry their backpacks and suitcases in the dark down the driveway to the rooms amidst ping pong ball sized hailstones on the ground everywhere! The van that picked them up at the airport couldn’t enter. This happened the day before Halloween. Muuuuaaaahahahahaha, Muuuuaaahahahaha!
All our workers said they have never seen anything like it. We all ran for cover when it started, and everyone was trapped wherever we were until it stopped. It was otherworldly for sure. Hailstones make a lot of noise when they hit the roof, eh? They pattered everywhere like stones falling from the sky. I think someone could have been killed if they were stuck out there with no cover!
Yogi the dog got disoriented and ran around in circles until… Bruce grabbed him and threw him in the kitchen as he passed by. Then Bruce put a chair over his head to run out into the hail and come to see if I was ok. What a sweet guy! He ran through hail to make sure I was ok! What a guy! A hailstone even drew blood on his arm, it hit him so hard. Good thing it wasn’t his head. Might have broken the hail stone!
I was with our foreman who runs the maintenance crew, as we were discussing where to hang some shelves on the walls in some of the rooms in Casa Tranquilo. We both went outside to watch, trapped under the porch of Casa Tranquilo. We both watched with amazement, wondering if the roofs were going to make it. Whew! What a ride! I climbed up into the attic to see how it was going with the roof and it was ok. All the toilet paper was safe!
The Gaia Sagrada pickup truck got some dents on the hood, but nothing too bad. It gives the car character. Kinda like life, huh? The knocks give us character. Nature once again shows us little humans who is boss!
Afterwards we all went around and looked to see how all the roofs were, and a couple sunroofs over the bathrooms and a couple rooms got broken. A few tiles got broken, but nothing too serious. The guys had it fixed in a day. It was worth the adventure of it all though.
Wow! Hail the size of ping pong balls in Ecuador. Who woulda thunk it? This stuff only happens in the north, right? Or the far south. Not at the equator! Boy, I sure wouldn’t have wanted to be out in an open field when that happened. One of the workers stuck his hand out to see how bad it was and he got quite a few bruises, silly guy! No tangling with the ping pong ball sized hailstones, ok?
A big thank you goes out to the November group for all you did to help us clean up afterwards, and what a bang they came in with. This will indeed be a most interesting retreat. The November group blows in like a beautiful squall. All of them are so strong and beautiful. This is unusual weather for Ecuador. Usually it is warm and sunny, but this blew some cold in from the north or something! We are looking forward to working with you, November group. Let’s move some energy and shake it loose!!!!
