Most of them have never seen snow, unless they've had the opportunity to leave the city and have seen the snow-capped mountains in the distance. They know they haven't seen snow. They have never touched or played in snow. They don't really understand its wetness and coldness. They don't even understand cold. But they know all these things, they will tell you they don't know, they will ask you about it.
But they think they know what rain is. They don't realize that they don't. My host mother in Lima used to announce when it was "raining" when she would come home to eat dinner with us. She would announce it like we in the United States would announce a hurricaine or blizzard. "Esta LLUVIENDO!" So we would bundle up and get ready for the monsoon weather that was apparently outside.
But when it rains in Lima, that's not what it's like. When it rains in Lima, it feels the same as always: the air dense and heavy, the sky fuzzy and muted, completely colorless and overbearingly low. The only difference is that, when it's raining, the usual wetness in the air feels alittle cooler, a little more misty and palpable. But nothing falls from the sky. Nothing gets wet. No umbrellas are necessary. No puddles can be accidentally stepped in.
No, in Lima, there is not rain. There is fog and there is humidity. There is mist, maybe, but not rain. Not drizzle, not "spit." But no one realizes it except those who come from the outside.
posted by iliza @ 11:54 PM
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