I wrote this back in November, 2019, and forgot to post it! It has been sitting in my drafts so I will post it now :)
I have learned that Honduras has 4 seasons.
1. Dry and hot
2. So hot you feel like you are being offered as a burnt offering to the sun god
3. Rainy Season—embrace the poncho life because rain jackets are a joke
4. North Carolina—aka never know what you are going to get. In the just one day it can be freezing, blazing hot, pouring down rain, back to hot and then freezing
My first August here (in 2019) during the rainy season, I lived in ponchos and Chacos because it rained so much. Bust this year was the opposite.
The people here called it the phenomenon of the “Ano del Nino”, “The Year of the Boy”. Coming out of the dry/so hot—as in you’ll get blisters on your feet if you walk on the beach sand at high noon—hot, all the farmers depend on the rain to save their crops and coffee. All the rivers are creeks are dried up, the lakes are mosquito infested puddles and you feel like a dried apricot. So, everyone watches the sky for the rain clouds. But the phenomenon of the Ano Del Nino is when no rain comes.
No rain = no water. I have never thought about water before. I took it for granted. As a kid, when the power went out during a storm, we still had water. I have been blessed to always have water to cook and clean with. Clean water to drink. Water to play in, water to water my plants, and water to shower. I have never thought of the privilege and gift I had because I’ve never been without.
Th first few weeks of the non-rain rainy season were okay. Everyone was worried about the water shortage because the coffee plants were drying up but we still had water in the main rivers and water tanks. But in September, it became a crisis. Everything was dried up.
People started using towelettes to “bath” because they needed the little water they did have to cook with. And then would only take a bucket shower once a week. The Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, who we work with, have a well in their retreat center, Casa Guadalupe. They were the only people with water in our neighborhood. So everyone would line up starting at 6am with their laundry, all the buckets they could find, to wash their laundry in the public pillas (where you wash clothes by hand), shower in the public showers and receive water to drink and cook with. They would be lined up all day. Kids of all ages, parents, grandparents, with every bucket they could carry.
Everyone once in awhile it would drizzle. You would see everyone running around putting their cups and buckets out to collect every drop of water. The next day, in the creeks there would be what I would have considered liquid mud, but you'd see mothers washing laundry on the rocks, or collecting the water to boil and cook with. One of the Abuelas (Grandmothers) told me, even though they boiled it, it still had a mud taste so she'd put a little bit of coffee grounds and lot of sugar to get the kids to drink it.
Because the crops were dry, prices started to go up and there were no normal harvesting jobs, so people were desperate for work and always looking. The number of kids digging through the trash searching for plastic to sell went up. It is normal for people to come to our door begging for food, but we started receiving people who would just ask for a cup of water.
Yet I still felt disconnected. Because we were able to buy water due to all our wonderful benefactors for the state side. We purchase filtered drinking water. We would purchase the water tanks to bathe in, and yes, the water would normally be brown and you would not be 100% sure if you were clean or not after a shower, but we had water.
I caught myself complaining one day in Casa Guadalupe, the Friars’ retreat center, because I don’t like the taste of the well water there. I was telling myself to just offer up the taste and be grateful for water. As I was leaving, I saw a little 11-year-old girl from our neighborhood. She had her chubby baby brother on her hip and was lugging a water pail in the other hand. Her 5-year-old brother was marching along behind hugging a 3L soda bottle with water. They were filthy, grinning ear to ear, and so excited to see me. Upon asking what they were up to, they informed me in a very animated conversation that their dad couldn’t find work due to no crops, and so went to a different town to look for work. Their mom started searching for work too because she can wash and iron clothes, but because she is always searching, she hasn’t had time to come to Casa Guadalupe for water. So, they decided to surprise her and get it themselves. And were so excited because the 5-year-old could carry the soda bottle, so they not only had water for dinner, but to bathe with as well. I think the well water in Casa Guadalupe is the best water in the world now.
So many stories of the months with no water. I will never take it for granted again. Rain finally came near the end of October, people had water again in their houses, Casa Guadalupe was quiet and empty…I remember standing there being so grateful for these beautiful people who let me live side by side with them. Who let me partake in their struggles, joys and continue to impact me with their humble trust in God. How even when it seems they have nothing; they still have so much more than me. Every once in a while, I see the 11-year-old girl around in the streets with her two brothers, and they always have such huge smile and are so excited to hold my hand and fill me in on the adventures of their day. They are so filled in joy, that instead of pitying them and their extreme poverty, you envy them and want to experience the joy that they have. I don’t know how many times I would be talking with the women in line for water and I would say something like, “I can’t imagine how difficult this must be for you”, and they would respond, “difficult yes, but . . .” and then proceeded to tell me a story of how so and so has it so much worse than they do so they are just fine standing in the sun in line for water. You see, they don’t focus on the negative parts of their situations. They take in stride and choose to be grateful for what they have.
Now flash forward to April 2020, we are back in sunny, hot dry season. In January, We got about three weeks of cold weather (aka it was in the 70s) and a little bit of rain. Everyone is hoping for rain before March because March and April are the hottest and driest times of the year.