The Rio Paraguay now flows through my room

I knew it was going to storm last night. I knew the rain would probably wake me up, but not like this. I was having a lovely dream last night when I was awoken by water gushing into my room. In the minute that it took me to realize I was actually awake and to get up out of bed, the water was already past my ankles. I looked around and realized where it was coming from: the gutter that ran along my family's house and through my room was falling apart. I stood there like an idiot not knowing what to do then started moving things away from the water, only to have them soaked again in minutes. Victorino was terrified and somehow ended up clinging to the wall. He kept jumping away every time I tried to pick him up but eventually I grabbed him by the nape and tossed him on my bed. I'm sure he was grateful.

At this point, my host mom had heard the ruckus and come in. She just stood there like me and said, “Ay! Hay agua!”. Yes host mom, hay agua. We grabbed some boards that were in the other room and used them to push the gutter back in place. We stood there for probably 10 minutes holding the gutter up and occasionally laughing at the craziness of the situation. Finally she had me hold both boards while she got a chair and more wood, which she shimmied between the gutter and the roof to hold it up. By this time a part of the gutter in my other room fell too and that room was beginning to flood. So I took my board, ran in there and held it up. My mom found a large piece of wood and propped it up with a chair and a bucket.

Once the water had stopped coming in, my oh-so-guapa host mom immediately got a squeegee and started clearing the water out of my room. The only problem was it was still storming like crazy outside and the water outside was just as high as the water in my room. So as she pushed water out, it just came right back in. But that woman worked like crazy and finally got a good amount of the water out. She was making jokes the whole time about how clean my floor was going to be and how I got to see the Rio Paraguay and how I probably had wanted to shower anyway.

Oh, and we did all this in the dark because the power was out. Este es mi vida!