Desert Rain

So let me remind my dear readers that I am in Juarez, which is located in the middle of the desert. Apparently, every fifty years or so there is a big rain... ...and the last one was, oh, about 50 years ago. So, this week, we have gotten more rain in the area than has ever been measured in Juarez in recorded history (we just surpassed the record set in 1881). I am not making this up. There have been walls of water on the streets and bridges/roads have collapsed... ...and it is not going to stop raining until this weekend.

Today started relatively uneventfully. I got up at 4:30 (6.5 hours of sleep) and got prepped for the day. I had a 6:30 conference call with Lexington/Cincinnati/France that seemed to have happened successfully without me as I could not dial in from Mexico. This same number and approach worked at 5, but not at 6:30 in the morning. Sigh.

We took the shuttle in and got there through the puddles/rivers/streams by 7:30 or so. They had breakfast there for us with fresh papaya. This is how every day should start. We went through the training and broke for lunch (same roughly as yesterday). We then restarted the training on our Spend Analysis tool and were really cranking through it.

At least we were doing well until the stressed out head of HR came in to tell us that the plant was being evacuated due to the rain. Apparently the sewer systems were filling with the sand/water and the plant could potentially flood. We were to leave immediately. So one of the managers had a large SUV and took us back around roadblocks, flooded streets and traffic to get us back to the hotel. For the first time, I had a chance to work out.

Dinner was relatively uneventful. I do think that I could make it a profession though to travel around the world and rewrite the English in menus. I ordered a puff pastry that came out as toast. I like toast almost as well as puff pastry -- but they are a bit tough to confuse.

So a nice end to the day -- and we will see tomorrow if we get to go to work.