Have you ever heard the rain? Have you ever seen them dance?
When the rain pours upon the roof of tin, the little ones begin to prance.
Have you ever seen them laughing as the water hits their face?
With a lack of running water, rain is needed in this place.
Have you ever heard the rain? Have you ever seen them dance?
I have seen them, I have danced there, I have held their hands:
Entranced.
***
They say that water brings life, and I believe them.
In the campos, rain is something special. It sets a rhythm to life all its own. Upon waking up in the morning, the people of Gajo tell me whether it is going to rain. They know this earth, these skies, and this air. They have lived here all of their lives, some for generations, and their weather wisdom never fails. But as the lightening hisses across the sky, it sets an electric energy in the souls that inhabit this mountainside. This rain means that later, they will be able to wash their clothes, dirty from a day in the fields. This rain means that they can have tea tonight during their dominoes game, the scents of the storm tickling the spices of the drink. This rain means that they can take a shower, standing on a rocky ledge behind their house with a bucket and a dried up, yellow bit of soap. You can see why this rain can set a soul aglow, can light a fire within someone; an irony as its properties normally extinguish flame.
In the mountains, the best part of the storm is the beginning. You can be standing anywhere- at the house of your family, near the ledge overlooking a valley, near the tank above the community- and you can hear it start. It whispers far away and when you look out, the trees murmur to each other as the rain bounces from one to the next. Soon the storm is getting close- you can see it touch the trees just a few feet away and a low mumble strokes the leaves nearest you. Now it is upon you, patting the ground below your feet as it moves on to meet the forest behind your back, and leaves you sometimes sprinkled and other times soaked.
But the noises are not solely in the trees. The houses, every one, have tin roofs. Inside, families cheer as the first drops spatter upon the metal. You look up, as this new sound enters your mind and allows you to process the moment. Sometimes the tin is only lightly brushed and the storm passes with a hush. Other times, the rain is loud, foreboding, and generous as water from the gutters spills into the collecting buckets your family will use later. The cheers continue and you might run outside with your little cousin to splash each other near the plastic pails. Maybe you will stand outside and just open your mouth to take in the current converging from the sky. Or you may simply nod with a smile at your family, a tinge of shame behind your eyes knowing how you take water for granted in your home country. But no matter what you do, the power of the rain is undeniable. In the dances, in the cheers, in the smiles it is true: This celebration for rain is unlike any other.
They say that water brings life, and I believe them.
When we started the job of building an aqueduct in Gajo la Yuca, we were there with the motivation to satisfy a need. We came in with few expectations, ready to dig, to pour concrete, to cut pipes, to pickax the soft earth away. And yet, we found there was so much more to this project than the tangible.
The project itself sounded simple: build an aqueduct for a community with no running water. But just what did something to this scale require? There were many people necessary to the aqueduct’s success: an engineer, local handymen, and ILAC coordinators and directors. However, the most important people, as any of us in Encuentro will tell you, were the men, women, and children of the community who worked alongside us. As we dug trenches, tore out piping, laid the tank foundation, and connected the homes to the new system, our Dominican brothers and sisters of Gajo la Yuca worked right alongside us. This created a powerful dynamic of motivation. Watching the excitement grow throughout the week as we came closer and closer to finishing the aqueduct was extraordinary.
There were moments of laughter, some because of the communication barrier. At one point, I accidentally told my grandmother I was a dog. Never have I seen a stranger look on someone’s face, except perhaps mine later, when my mother asked me in all seriousness if I really was one.
There was other humor too. I learned some is universal and requires no language, such as when my two-year-old cousin ran into the family’s pet goat during a temper tantrum. Scared tremendously, a roar of laughter ensued as we attempted to calm her down in her fit of confusion.
As a unit, we shared moments of frustration too. One morning, while transporting sand, everyone in our assembly line kept slipping down the mountain mud. It was not long before everyone was angry- at the mud, at the person next to them who handed the bucket too slow, even at the bug that had just flown into their eye. Within a matter of minutes, the job was done and suddenly, the accomplishment of the task was all that mattered. Unexpectedly, the group fell to silence as we realized we had lost sight for a moment of our purpose.
Yet, most inspiring was the sizzle of anticipation in every ounce of teamwork the project required. Men left their day jobs to dig with us, the children crowded around and held tools for the men gluing pipes, and young people who grew up in Gajo even came from nearby cities to contribute in any way possible.
And at the end of the week, there it stood: A tank atop a mountain with pipes stretching over 2.5 km into the community that would provide running water to dozens of homes. It really appeared a thing of beauty, with a loveliness all its own. Now, the people of Gajo will have water often, and not just when it rains.
But something tells me that every time those faucets turn on, someone will dance a little, another will giggle, and the sound of the water reaching through the faucet from the pipes below will provide the same exhilaration as that of the rain on the tin roof.
They say that water brings life, and I believe them.
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