Winter has finally started here in San Dionisio, and with
them come some new challenges and opportunities. Last year, there were sporadic rains during
summer, and it seemed less hot. By the
end of this dry season, it was really dry.
This year however, I have been periodically without water for about a
month and water storage has been a problem.
I try keeping two 5 gallon buckets filled with water- one for drinking,
one for bathing and cleaning - but that has not been so easy. The water sometimes came on for a few hours
during the day or night, but I live alone and am oftentimes not home during the
day. So, I had few opportunities to fill
up. I bathed in the river a few times,
not a bad proposition because the closest river to me happens to be the town’s
best swimming hole, where a small creek cuts through a layer of rocks and there
are some jumps and shade at all times. However, by the time I got home I was usually muddy,
dusty, and/or sweaty.
Doing laundry became a challenge. I wash my clothes at my host family’s house,
and when nobody is there, they naturally keep it locked. On several occasions, their water resources
were too low for me to use. Other times,
when they were home and there was water, someone was washing for them, making
use of the limited times water was available.
Now that the water is back, I have quite a bit of clothes to wash, and
hope that the aquifer recharges and the issues come to an end. I live near the top of the community, and
friends living “abajo” say they have rarely lost water, so it must be some sort
of pressure problem, which keeps the water they do have flowing only
downhill.
Now that the rains have come, there is another problem in
that hanging clothes outside does not guarantee they will dry. Rains inevitably interrupt the drying
process, and cause mildew and mold to accumulate if not watched carefully. Sometimes my host family is on alert and will
take my clothes off the line when I am not home, but sometimes they are not
there to do me that favor. Several pants
and shirts have small black splotches on them, some sort of mold that is next
to impossible to get off.
After just a few rains, there are already some large puddles
around town, and pools of standing water where runoff goes. In larger cities, the sheer volume of trash
thrown on the ground blocks up the feeble drainage systems and can cause
flooding if not attended to. The radio
station in Managua plays a public service message telling people how many
millions of Cordobas they are wasting each year by continually cleaning their
drainage system, and I assume they do not include flood damage or other losses
in their estimation.
Rains also are loud and keep me up at night hitting my thin
tin roof. They make casual trips to town
or even the local convenience store harder because you risk a soaking when
stepping out of the house. I am in the
middle of a stove building project, and I can no longer leave concrete outside
to dry. Bugs and other critters are
looking for new homes away from a flood prone place, and some flying ants seem
to think my house is up for grabs. I
have also found a small snake in my house recently, and the frogs are
everywhere on the street. This time last
year, I found a scorpion in my house, and I am on alert to flip shoes over
before putting them on.
With all that said, I have been really looking forward to
the rains coming back. It is a much
needed change in pace from the heat and I no longer feel like I am being baked
alive in my house midday. The dusty, hot
and brown summer is over after it seemed to drag on and on. While it remains almost unbelievably bright,
infinite shades of low grey clouds hang over the tired slopes around town,
occasionally showering the land in live giving water. The rains mean that the fire scorched fields
in the countryside sprout new life - corn, beans, sorghum, millet or simply grasses. The scrawny cows have food again, producing
more milk and lowering the price.
Farmers will have something to bring to market in a few weeks, renewing
their yearly economic fortunes and providing for some disposable income.
For me, it also means that one of my jobs- planting school
gardens, will come to fruition. Although
we could have started planning and building fencing etc. earlier in the school
year, the rains have changed people’s mentality and teachers are much more
interested in planting now. This past
week, I got some good calluses digging post holes with a 6 sided iron bar with
a wedged end. At another school, we
reinforced their passion fruit trellis, and I gently pulled the clinging curly
parts of the vine off a mango tree and twirled them to the new scaffolding
while the kids did the real work attaching metal wires across the expanse.
Although I never ended up buying a fan, it was hard to sleep
without showering first, and my house has no shade from the midday sun. The project house that I live in was built
after hurricane Mitch by my host dad, the former town engineer, and was somehow
kept by my host family, along with theirs.
It seems like an afterthought for them, and has not had a tenant until
me, so nobody really planted trees or kept it up too much for the last 15 years
(I finally got one of my windows to open after living here over a year). When I got there, there were no trees
planted, and the ones I did were sometimes killed during weeding.
I guess that’s all I have to say right now, I am thinking of
the states and especially the food as of late, even the lemonade on a TV show
made my mouth water the other day!
-Dave
