Rain, rain, go away......

Well, after a long rest, it's time to stretch my blogging fingers and get back to work!  My computer was struggling a little bit but thanks to the kindness of strangers, I sent it back, got it fixed and my mom brought it in with her.  So excited to have a fully functioning keyboard again!  Strange how things like the letter "k" and "e" are kind of important.  I digress.  

My visiting family is jet lagged and sleeping, so I'll catch up on my blogging.  My roommate Meredith is leaving.  (Actually, by this time she's really already home).  We had the goal of spending the night on the beach before she left.  You may recall that I did spend the night at the beach before....but stayed in a wonderful hotel room (courtesy of a friend of mine).  This time Meredith and I wanted to be cheap. Since I had a tent sent over on the container that I hadn't broken in yet, we decided that a night in a tent on the beach sounded ideal.  Also, it would only cost $10.  There were little bungalows that would cost $50 but we were in a money saving mood and also wanted some adventure.

When we arrived, there were a bunch of people all crowded around a tree looking for a snake. I freaked out. There aren't a lot of things that make my blood run cold here....but snakes are one of them.  "Don't worry," said one of the spectators.  "It's very very small.  Like this," he said, pointing to the lanyard holding my keys.  

Lie. Lie. Lie.  I've tried for the last 30 minutes to upload the picture of the snake that I took...but it just won't work.   You'll have to take my word for it that this guys pants were on fire!!!!  While they were working on getting the snake out of the tree Meredith and I worked on setting up the tent.  (I'll admit that the snake was a great distraction because otherwise the two white girls trying to put up a tent would have been the main attraction).  We decided that since it is rainy season we should apply the handy dandy rain flap.  As you may notice from the picture below (my sister was kind enough to point this out), the rain flap doesn't actually cover the window.  Error #1.  

Little did we know at this point what this little error would cost us

We were literally the only people at the beach besides the people that worked there.  They'd put all the tables and chairs that usually litter the beach away. It was almost like people didn't really come to the beach during the rainy season....huh.  One of the owners/guy who is in charge asked us if we were sure we'd be OK out there.  "Sometimes that wind really picks up!"  No way!! We'll be fine!  Our plan was to try it out in the tent and if it was awful we'd fork over the $50 for the bungalow.  We didn't work out the details of exactly how I'd find someone in the middle of the night to tell them that we couldn't hack it in the tent but...figure we'd cross that bridge when we came to it....at 3am.  

After setting up the tent we had a delicious dinner and enjoyed a lovely evening on the beach. By about 8pm it was way past our bedtime (and turns out there's not a whole lot for two girls to do on a deserted beach) so we went to bed.  In our tent.   

After a couple hours of doing girly sleepover things like giggling and one person trying to kill another person by spraying copious amounts of mosquito repellent while inside a tent with zero ventilation (some things are "African specific" sleepover activities) we rolled over to go to sleep.  And the rain started.  And it kept raining.  All. Night. Long.  

Remarkably, we both slept pretty well.  We woke up every couple hours and sometimes we just started laughing at the ridiculousness...but then went back to sleep. One of those times I woke up and my sleeve was wet.  But since my face wasn't wet and I was still sleepy....I just went back to sleep.  Probably not my best decision.

In the morning we woke up to a lake around the edges of our tent.  And by "edges of our tent" I mean inside our tent.  I pulled my phone out of the puddle it was submerged in and....nothing.  Rats.  It was like we were on an island and we were dry, but all our stuff...wasn't. And it was still pouring, so we just kept getting wetter.  Finally we decided that it wasn't just going to blow over so we took all our stuff to the car.  That little jaunt cost us whatever illusion of "dryness" there still was, so we just embraced it.  We went down to the edge of the ocean and Meredith went in.  (Since she's from a land-locked state and was leaving Sierra Leone I decided I didn't have the same need to go swimming and watched her craziness from the shore).

Walking....walking...walking.....dunked!

Just not as hardcore as Meredith

After we were finished swimming we went back to the covered area and definitely got an "I told you so" from the manager.  Touche'.  But he did say that the next time we came if it wasn't busy and we still wanted to save money we could talk to him and he'd see what he could do so......score!! :)

All in all, not a bad trip!!  Thanks Meredith!!