You really understand what living in a valley truly is, when you stop living in one. In the past years I have travelled, and lived in different cities: cities with and without a coastline, cities located right next to major lakes, and even places that have been visited, at least once, by tornadoes. Honestly, when I moved to Paraguay, the “Heart of Latin America”, I never thought this would be the place where weather alerts would start to get me truly alerted. Asuncion: a flat land, not seemingly tropical (although close enough to Brasil), bordered by a not-too-big of a river (at least that’s my impression from here). Well let me tell you something: don’t get fooled like me, by what may seem logical to you.

Storms here are pretty scary. Truly scary. They come unexpectedly, without much of a notice. They are sometimes short, but strong enough to send you running towards the bathroom (to lock yourself in it). If you see that a pretty sunny day, starts turning into something like this, better get home soon, because in just a matter of an hour, you may not be able to do so.

During my first month in Paraguay, a year ago, I experienced my first encounter with Paraguay’s summer weather. The aftermath resulted in 3 long days of no electricity, under a 40 degrees’ sun. After watching the massive, brown river that ran through my street, taking along cars and bushes as souvenirs, I knew that as long as I lived here, storms really meant GO HOME!

They do scare me, but they also fascinate me. Here, you can truly witness the power of nature in a normal, rainy-kind-of-day. It’s majestic.