Cubicle Throwdown

tales of a serial expat

Rainy Roatan Nights

by


We’ve been dodging a very big bullet on Roatan for nearly two months now… RAINY SEASON. The dreaded few months of the year where gray skies and rain only leave us a few days of sun, where the power is out more than it’s on and when you get ‘trapped’ in bars, restaurants or your friends house because you want to wait out the torrential downpour that just started outside. It’s the time of year when you go to take out one of your clutches from the back of the closet and discover all 4 of them are most definitely molded together and sporting tiny fur blankets. When you wake up in the morning and your sheets are damp even though you’re finally not sweating… and you wonder for a second if you’re back in Canada, camping in May. Some say it’s the season when your clothes don’t dry, but I call bullshit because clothes never dry here.


Rainy season has finally solidified itself and we’ve been treated to a most impressive tropical storm for the last 5 days. We’re looking at a couple days off and then another one starting. Now, I have a tendency to exaggerate (who, me?) so please don’t get any typhoon Yolanda images going on. No one here is in danger. But Mother Nature has sure been putting on a show! The rain is coming in my house, the wind is knocking lamps over inside and I am freezing. My dirty little secret is that I actually love rainy season… the heat here is wayyyy too much for me. I’m also all about the wind blowing all the goddamn bugs out of my house finally. But in the diving community, that only means one thing – no work, no money and nothing to do. Bad combo all around.

me on the dive boat and an ominous sky… from last rainy season. i no longer fit into that rash guard or shorts. le sigh.



A lot of my guests have been stuck in their fancy villas (oh, tragedy) waiting out the rain and the wind. They’ve all come by the dive shop to ask what exactly we do here when the weather is bad? Well…nothing really. There’s drinking, watching movies on your laptop or playing cards with your friends. Or writing blog posts about doing all of that.


I thought I’d share what I get up to so I could answer the burning question of what do you do here during rainy season?




1. I cook.


We all know by now I looooooove to eat. And living alone in the middle of nowhere that means I need to cook as well. One huge can of pumpkin that I didn’t know what to do with inspired the following cook-off last night:


  • savory pumpkin pizza dough that I used to make two mini-pizzas and a ‘hot pocket’ type thing (filling/topping is ground beef, spinach, tomatoes and mozza cheese), plus two extra things of dough to freeze and use later

so…i have no oven, just a stovetop. i use this thing i found in the cupboard. it sucks kinda.

  • pumpkin coconut curry with chicken, spinach, tomatoes and chickpeas
  • pumpkin-blueberry-coconut-chocolate almond milk popsicles (uhh…for when it warms up outside?)


  • and on a non-pumpkin-related-note, cabbage/rice/ground beef/tomato casserole that I ate too fast to take a picture of.


And I still have pumpkin from the can left to use!!


2. I watch movies.


Well, that shouldn’t be a shocker. 


I finally have had some good luck with my stupid 3G internet stick and was managing some decent Netflix connections the last couple weeks. I made my way through the first 3 seasons of Parks and Recreation and looooved it (why did I not know about it before!?).

source


I think I like Ron so much because he kind of reminds me of my dad. Especially that sweet, sweet ‘stache.


After I finished that I watched a bunch of documentaries, including a rather ridiculous BBC one about Pompeii. I should know better than to watch documentaries from the 1990s. Now I’m slowly wading through The Pillars of the Earth. It was a great book, I’m not 100% sure about this mini-series but I’m hooked enough to keep watching. Other than movies and TV shows, I also often get trapped down the wormhole of following different youtube videos until I’ve watched 7 “Best of Honey Boo Boo” compilations in a row. Impressive.

3. I listen to music (and waste my internet stick data rapidly).

I like to find long DJ mixes on youtube and listen to them while cooking, washing dishes, etc. This drains the F out of my 3G internet stick but sometimes I don’t care if I have to pay $14/week instead of $7, I just want to feel like a real person who can listen to an hour and nine glorious minutes of dancehall if she feels like it. I’m also really digging Alt-J right now.

4. I read.

But I’m kinda out of books at the moment. I need to get back to town with the 5 books I have ploughed through 2x each since I brought them back from Canada in September, so I can exchange them at the book exchange place. I’m currently rereading The Red Tent for the 70billionth time on my Kobo app on my iPhone, since it’s the only book I have on it. I should probably ask for Kobo gift certificates for Christmas. Or an actual Kobo. I really, really need an e-reader!

5. I watch the weather from my deck like an old lady.

Usually looks like this:



Now looks like this:

if you click on this photo to make it big, and then look to the left of the super dark bit in the very center of the photo… you can see a waterspout!


And this is very embarrassing for a Canadian to post as it was 26C/79F in this picture. BUT I’M COLD OKAY. It’s usually 45C/113F here so it’s a little chilly for me right now…and I am loving it!!


do two sheets, four sarongs and a big beach towel count as a blanket?


I also write for this blog, for other sites, run an online business, put together Youtube videos of dive sites for my shop, edit and upload photos of the resort I work at for the marketing company I work for, and chat with friends. However, you can see that 99% of the stuff I do here relies on the internet. And did I mention the internet was shitty here?

So those are some things I do when it’s raining here. I don’t have the luxury of roommates, cable TV or a boyfriend to pass the time with so I have to keep myself occupied. I’m literally stuck in my house since the road down to the main building from my house is washed out and the road into town is too muddy for my scooter now. Mostly I just check Facebook a lot though. So please keep me entertained over there!



There’s still time to enter my personalized dayplanner giveaway.. go enter if you haven’t already!

Guys, make sure to follow me on Facebook and Twitter … there’s lots of extras posted there that don’t make it onto the blog. Plus it makes sunny days happen. So there’s that.






Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Carmel & Shawn says

    I was just remarking to Shawn that I find it odd that I was ever able to say "I'm bored" in my former life. Now I don't even have a job to keep me occupied, but I still find a ton to do with my time…like reading, practicing Spanish, writing for the blog, editing photos, making videos (like the one for our Snake Farm trip!)…it's crazy that I ever couldn't occupy 3 hours of time in the evening besides watching TV. I think my brain was just being lazy.

    I miss cooking 🙁

  2. Rika - Cubicle Throwdown says

    It is cozy!! Except when I come up from a dive and freeze to death in the wind on the boat in a soggy wetsuit 🙁

    I was so surprised last year how quickly I adapted to this temperature feeling cold…for some reason I still can't handle the heat in the summer though.

  3. Rika - Cubicle Throwdown says

    I know!! I'm going to put it on my Christmas wish list!

    I feel like my baking/cooking skills are turning more into pioneer woman/survival than the more gourmet stuff I used to whip up in Canada. That being said, I'm out of propane for the stovetop so I've been eating peanut butter out of the jar all day to stay alive, so maybe I shouldn't say 'skills'.

  4. Sally Bucey says

    Girl you NEED an e-reader! It changed my life. Do everything you can to get one.

    And your baking/cooking skills are amazing, I'm so impressed. I'm a failure in the kitchen purely because of laziness, not lack of skills haha.

  9. Rika - Cubicle Throwdown says

    Hi Agness – thanks for your concern!! We made it out okay, I had a lamp break after it was thrown over due to wind, and my house flooded from rain but it ended up being not too bad. Could have been a lot worse!

  10. Michelle says

    I love doing the same things as you on a rainy day! (or in your case, lots of rainy days!) Those chocolate pumpkin truffles look amazing! (what a fun combination haha)

    And I would LOVE to have your sunny days haha. If you haven't read it already, The Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain is a really good book (I had to read it for one of my classes last week, and I loved it!)

  12. Steph (@ 20 Years Hence) says

    Tony & I were relative late-comers to P&R as well… we tried watching it when it first aired and just didn't find it funny. And then we rediscovered it through Netflix and the next thing you know, we've stayed up for 18 hours and marathoned 2 seasons worth… 😉

    Also, I keep wandering around Nepal shivering and wondering why it is so cold. And then I see the temperature and realize that it's actually 25ºC and I'm just being a freak. Clearly someone needs to take my Canadian passport away!

  13. Jess says

    Your rainy season actually sounds pretty cozy!

    I know how easy it is to get a new standard for 'cold' – when I moved to New Orleans, suddenly anything under 50 became freezing.

  14. Agness says

    The storm looks very serious. Are you gonna be ok? Do you know when it's gone? Dongguan is also rainy these days, but nothing like your storm :). Cooking is a great idea to kill the boredom. Your vegan chocolate pumpkin truffles look so yummy! I love your room, so cozy! I'm Polish and I could be used to freezing cold weather, but after living in Asia for 2 years +20C is chilly for me 🙂

  15. Rika - Cubicle Throwdown says

    Yeah!! I'm a huge Amy Poehler fan. I love her in this series.

    Riding a bike in freezing rain sounds terrible. At least it's still pretty warm here…but I am missing my big lululemon rain jacket and Hunter rainboots that got me through rainy seasons in Vancouver!

  19. Colleen Brynn says

    I got mega trapped in a cafe on Saba with a friend. We drank beer and played backgammon while water literally gushed down the street like a river. There was something about that that I loved, but I have always loved rain. This is why I'm sure I'm destined to live in Ireland. And yes, NONE of my stuff was ever dry on Saba (and that was only for a week) and some of my stuff started growing funny little white spots of mould. Bleh. The locals say they are just used to all that.
    And I hear you with the weather… I know how odd it sounds to find 26C cold, but it's all about what you get used to! I was bundling up in Asia this summer in the warm, balmy evenings too!

  20. Alex says

    I've been blowing through Parks and Rec right now too, just find the humor spot on.

    You're so lucky to have a rainy season. It rains a ton here in Germany and I actually feel like it affects nothing as everyone has the proper attire and realizes life can't stop. So there I am riding my bike in freezing rain. Womp womp.

  22. Sarah says

    Aw, Rika we miss seeing you for weeks at a time. If the weather were better, I'd hail a boat to come pick you up again!!