My Kingdom for Some Drain-O

"Nunca llueve en Málaga." Translated, this means, "It never rains in Málaga."

The next person to tell me that gets a swift kick in the rear.

It's a favorite saying of the malagueños, who are proud of the beautiful weather they enjoy here on the alleged "sun coast" of Spain.  Málaga is the place where all the Northern Europeans come to sit on the beach and turn their pasty skin a nice shade of "lobster," the place where the only religion still strictly adhered to is that of the "afternoon siesta" (to avoid the hottest part of the day). 

This year, it also happens to be the place where it started raining in December and didn't stop until mid-March.  About the middle of February I started to suspect it wasn't rain at all--it was God spitting on us and laughing. 

Here's hoping he's got Dry Mouth.  It seems to be the case at the moment; it got warm and sunny just in time for the madness of Holy Week.  There are massive, red velvet-covered risers set up in the plaza near my apartment, and a few days ago little metal lanes marked "enter" and "exit" started popping up at street entrances around the center.  I couldn't for the life of my figure out what the lanes were for until I decided to walk to the beach this morning and realized that every street out of my house was blocked by Virgin Mary statues, marching bands and hordes of spectators.  Turns out those little lanes, each one guarded by two harassed-looking employees in neon yellow vests, are the only way to keep pedestrian traffic going through the crowds.  They're kind of like that tiny space in your bathtub drain where water can still trickle through when the rest of it is clogged with hair. 

Anyway, more to come about Holy Week.  Tomorrow I'm meeting up with a couple from my church who are going to give me the backstage VIP tour.  On Wednesday I'll be escaping the crowds altogether to go to Extremadura with some Spanish friends. 

Other March happenings:

I went to Barcelona a couple of weeks ago to visit Lindsey Trio, a friend from St. Thomas who's spending the semester abroad.  We spent most of our time looking over our shoulders to make sure nobody was watching while we took stupid pictures.  Her youngest host brother is so cute I almost took him back to Málaga with me.  My felony kidnapping plans were foiled when I remembered I only had a carry-on.  He's only six, so he might have fit in my suitcase, but there was no way he was squeezing into my school backpack unless I left my hairdryer behind.  And there are some things you just don't do. 

One of the bilingual professors at my school decided to teach the 11- and 12-year-olds a song about the earthquake in Haiti.  The other day we went to the outdoor market in Campillos and the kids sang the song to raise money for quake victims in Haiti and Chile.  They were accompanied by electric keyboard, drums, and a boy playing the guitar with a terrifed look on his face.  In hindsight we probably shouldn't have threatened to send him to Haiti if he missed a chord.  The class also sold watercolor paintings they made in art class--mostly to the parents who had shown up to watch their kids. 

My friend, Erin, and I have been taking salsa lessons.  We have two instructors, Irena and Jesús.  Irena is sweet, but Jesús is slightly terrifying; he looks like he should be barking orders at a troop of Marines.  We've been informed several times that we're the "slow class."  Still, I like them both and classes are fun.

That's it for now.  I hope you all have an amazing Easter!  Eat a chocolate bunny for me.