First rains

This year the rains are starting early. Normally they begin after the first week of May, however, there are years like this one in which some scattered showers are beginning to be noticed as early as mid-April.

For those of us who live in the tropics, nature only offers us two seasons a year, the rainy season, which can sometimes be very intense, and the dry season, which can also extend more than usual and give rise to large vegetation fires.

In the years of my childhood the rainy season was received with great joy, this because we did not have direct water service.

During the dry season, all the water we consumed was bought in tanker trucks, which represented a considerable expense in the family budget.

But when the rains came, everything changed. With the first rains we would fill a large row of metal pipes, all with airtight lids. In those pipes we could store water for several days.

The water was collected from a channel that came down from the roof. With each heavy downpour that channel became a great waterfall. My mother, my brother and I would wait for the water to fall with enough force and there, the three of us, under the heavy rain, would place the pipes so that they would fill up.

A great spectacle unfolded before my childish eyes. I loved to watch the little silvery swirls forming as the water from the roof entered the pipote. Such was the force of the water that those pipes, of about one hundred and fifty liters each, were filled in just a few minutes.

After filling the first one, we would place pieces of metal channel to carry the water to the ones further back. In this way we managed to fill up to twelve pipes in a row.

With that collected water my mother solved all the needs of the house. She always took the precaution of boiling the water we were going to drink for ten minutes.

During the winter season we almost never went back to buy water from the trucks. My mother organized to use only the water that fell from the sky.

We saved a lot of money by not having to buy water, and my mother always set aside some of it to take us out for ice cream when we went out on the town. Another part she saved to buy uniforms and school supplies for the next school year.

But with the rain also came some inconveniences. To get to our house we had to walk down a long dirt road, which turned into a big muddy mess during the rainy season. There was no way to avoid that step, and it was inevitable that to go to and from school we had to walk on that muddy road.

My mother would put our uniform, school supplies, school shoes and towels to dry us off in plastic bags. All of us, including her, wore shorts and rubber sandals. We each carried two bottles of clean water. When we got to the paved part, where we would take the bus to school, we would wash our feet and flip-flops, dry off and that's when we would get dressed in our school uniform and shoes. My mother would also put on a long skirt and her leather sandals. We would repeat this twice a day throughout the rainy season.

I currently live in a mountain area that is quite humid, more than I like at this stage of life, actually I would like to be somewhere a little drier. However, the rainy season always has its charms, the greens become more intense than ever and the birdsong is much louder and more joyful. It is nature celebrating the rebirth of life...

Thanks for your time.

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