A Little Fall of Rain…
February, 2003
I was sleeping out under the roof of an open sided horse shelter when I awoke to see tendrils of fog lifting themselves in wisps and ribbons all around me. It was some time around 2:00 in the morning, during the dry season in the Cuchumatan Mountains of Guatemala. It was an amazing sight I had not seen the like of before or since- the tendrils danced as if alive, writhing their way across the sky as if dancing with it, eventually coalescing into a low cloudbank. By midday, it was raining, and it continued raining, softly, with a gentle, soaking consistency very uncharacteristic of the region. It was early February, and as a rule it does not rain in the Sierra de los Cuchumatanes from late December until mid-June. Period. Once in January, once in March, once in April, you can expect a thunderstorm with violent hail and a brief downpour, and indeed I saw that. It is strange that something so insignificant as a little fall of rain would have so much impact on the eventual course of my life.
So let’s begin with the reason why was I sleeping in a horse shed. At the time, I was living in a one-room house with a married couple of Peace Corps volunteers, and had just recently met Adam, the young man who was shortly to become my boyfriend. Adam and I were working together the next day on a project, and he was thus spending a rare night in our territory. We were still early enough into being acquaintances that we did not yet have enough understanding of each other to realize we were about as incompatible as two people can be. In other words, we actually still liked each other. Not wanting to further disturb the conjugal life of the couple I was living with, I decided that Adam and I would spend the night outdoors, under the excuse of “stargazing.”
The stars really were amazing that night, in the extremely dry, clear cold air. Because of the latitude, both the Northern and Southern Milky Way spread out like a veil across the sky. The air at 11,000’ was extremely crisp, and the planets flashed like lit jewels, with the beautiful, legendary Southern Cross presenting itself just before I lost interest in the sky to pursue delights of a more earthbound sort. Indeed, poor Adam was shown the paces that fateful evening, as he learned a valuable lesson about teasing a hot blooded female to a frenzy while trying to maintain the façade of good Christian boy. Looking back, I do not think he ever did recover completely from that night, a fact of which I am proud to admit.
He was snoring away when I awoke to witness the singular beauty of the fog show, and I slipped back into my clothes, scarf, hat, and gloves to appreciate the ethereal, wraithlike forms. It was like a white Aurora Borealis in reverse, with the ribbons dancing their way from the ground to sky, instead of sky to earth, and the air itself was as still and peaceful as a first snowfall. The sky was lit with a faint whitish glow that was expectantly spiritual, as if the Creator’s breath was emanating with clarity of force from the frigid ground. I do not remember even hearing any feral dogs howling that night, nor roosters crowing, nor donkeys braying. The silence was as reverent as it was unusual. I lay there captivated in its beauty, suspended in animation.
The rain started falling in the early am, just I awakened Adam to slip back into the house with me before sunrise, in effort to avoid pointed questions form the neighbors who already believed all of us gringos eccentric at best. Two hours later, as we were preparing for a long day in the field, we received a knock on the door. It was Don Chinto, my future landlord. Head bowed, hat in hand, he informed me that our neighbor, Dona Apollonia, had passed away at 2:00 am in a hospital two hours away in the city. He shared a moment of awkward silence with us, and I touched his upper arm to acknowledge his emotions, unsure if I could give him the hug I wanted to. This small man, who three months later would be helping me hold down a stallion while I gelded it, walked away crying softly. I never saw him cry again, even as members of his own family were abandoned by spouses, their children were buried, his oldest son was murdered in a knife fight, and his teenaged middle daughter impregnated by a drunk. There was just something special about Dona Apollonia that had touched his life.
I had only known her very slightly, and mostly through Stacy, one half of the married couple with whom I resided. I remember her as a large, kind, very round woman, with a gentle, smiling face. She had a laugh that could resonate off the hillsides. She was an active community leader and mother of eight children. She was the arch-rival of Dona Vicenta, another very round woman who also happened to be a community leader. Apparently, this little town of 150 families was not quite big enough for two dominant matriarchal personalities, and these two women had been feuding for quite a while. When asked how long, nobody knew. Once, during a fight, Vicenta brought up something Apollonia had done to slight her 17 years, 6 months, and 4 days ago, an amazing feat when you consider neither woman could read or write. This led to the argument bringing in the extended family, and boy, I thought MY family could fight! Vicenta had given birth to 17 children, so Apollonia, having the sense to stop to stop at 8, could not possibly understand what motherhood was like. Of course all of Apollonia’s had survived, but only 12 of Vicenta’s had, so who was really the better mother?
Vicenta’s son had gone to college, while Apollonia’s oldest had done nothing more impressive than skip town to find work in the city. But none of Apollonia’s boys were the womanizing, prostitute visiting SOB’s that characterized Vicenta’s college educated Eusebio. But Apollonia’s husband had cheated Vicenta out of the finest five acres in the community. And why did Vicenta get two greenhouses built for her when Apollonia was only getting one? And Apollonia’s dog always s**t in front of Vicenta’s store. And so on, and so on- what started it, we will never, ever know, but the feud was as alive as the personalities of the two women involved. Picture the eldest busy-body from the Methodist congregation in a very small town in any rural community in the US, and then picture how well she gets along with the eldest Catholic matriarch in the same town, and you’ll have a picture of what I’m talking about.
I can say this about Dona Apollonia- I will be forever grateful to her for simple acts of human kindness. I had reached site December 24, 2002, after finally sorting out having been robbed of all my settling money on the bus ride to the mountain. I knew absolutely no one in town, except Rosanio, the man I was assigned to work with, and his obviously jealous, snarling wife. There was no way in Hell I was setting foot on their property if I did not have to! I spent Christmas day utterly alone, caring for a German Shepherd that belonged to the volunteers whose house I was sharing until my own had a floor and latrine. I remember crying because I was so lonely and I missed my family and boyfriend back home so keenly I could feel it like a knife cutting me.
There was an unexpected knock on the door, and Apollonia brought me a stack of fresh cooked tortillas, an egg, a mess of beans, and some bread. She wished me Merry Christmas, and she stayed with me long enough to consume this meager meal with me. She hugged me and welcomed me to the community. Six days later, she dragged me along with her brood of children to New Year’s eve church services, where she admitted to me in hushed tones that she found the litany very long and boring, and wished the preacher would actually find something useful to say for once. She then taught me her method of ducking Roman Candles inside the church, as this was the preferred method of ringing in the New Year. We left the church giggling like small girls by the time the night was over. She would later defend all three of us volunteers over a community misunderstanding, and she never stopped bringing us tortillas. Whenever I observe the way people treat Latin immigrants in this country, I always remember the simple humanity of her gestures to make me feel welcome, and I seriously wonder how many of us could find that same grace were she to come to live as a stranger in our village.
Stacy and I would go to visit her, and help her tend the vivero, or tree nursery, she had on her property. This woman loved those trees more than her own children, and almost as much as her husband on a good day. She had her thousands of tiny seedlings propped up in little plastic bags, and during the dry season she hauled water from ¼ mile away to care for them. She carried the water in a big plastic “tinaja” on her head, and carefully parsed it out so each precious little sapling received just enough to sustain it. There were so many trees, it took three trips, every other day, to water them all. She had built shade cloths over and around them, and often spent hours on end pruning dead leaves and branches. She talked to them, sang to them, prayed for them, and buried amulets of power for them to grow strong. Over the span of ten years, she had managed to organize a community of women around her vision of reforestation.
She had been a young girl when the US CIA stepped in to control land reform in her country, and effectively started Guatemala’s 36 year long civil war. She bore witness to the loss of her people’s culture, the genocide of the neighboring towns, and the destruction of the land in a weak attempt to pay off debts accrued by the conflict. Her heart broke as the forests were razed to reap the money of foreign investors, and she vowed even before the reforestation workers from Holland arrived, that she would do whatever she could to repair the damage done. The workers from Holland based their own nursery system on the one she developed through years of trial and error. No one taught her- she just kind of figured it out. She always said she would die for the trees- her children could care for themselves.
On our visits, she soon learned that I do not drink coffee, and this greatly puzzled her. I must say that the worst drinks I have ever forced down my gullet were from her, as she tried in her mind to rationalize what a non-coffee drinker could possibly imbibe as a substitute. This is in a land where as soon as babies can walk they are handed a bottle of coffee, which becomes their daily sustenance. The only difference in less poor areas is that it not coffee in the bottles, but rather Pepsi. Not knowing what to give me, when I asked for a cup of water, she scratched her head. Water? Why would anyone drink WATER? She came back each time with a different concoction of water mixed with something, each “something” more horrendous than the last. One occasion was the cup of lukewarm boiled water, supersaturated with 2 handfuls of pure cane sugar. Seeing my reaction as I politely tried to choke that down, the next time she mixed some flower petal mash with the sugared water that managed to be at once sour and bitter, and left my mouth numb. Fresco, she called it. It left such a strong impression that I can still taste it. As bad as it was, I still admire the fact that she tried to step into a complete stranger’s realm of understanding for a moment- an incredible undertaking for a woman who had never spent a day in school, and had been taught to fear and hate outsiders.
She was a visionary woman, as was the aforementioned Vicenta. Vicenta was a shrewd businesswoman, and her husband the only person in town who owned a vehicle that was not four-legged. It was he who had driven Apollonia to the hospital the night she died. Apollonia’s gift was of a different sort- she had community vision: the reforestation efforts, the building of the maternity center, the blueprints for a technical training school were all her brainchildren. And the jelly fundraiser, where they used the berries from a black raspberry, called ‘muco’ in the native tongue, and elderberry, ‘sauco’, to make a thin, smoke-flavored, delicious jam which they sold in local markets to subsidize the women’s group. We tried telling them time and time again that if they wanted to cater to the tourist market, perhaps ‘jelly of muco’ was not the best name, but they were adamant, especially Apollonia. Its name is muco, therefore we will call it muco. Vicenta of course stole her idea, and was perturbed that Apollonia’s group outsold hers, and the men were upset that their wives were now earning more money then they were. Dona Apollonia laughed her way through it all- she seemed to know better then to take such things seriously.
I have to wonder what pushes people like her to be extraordinary. There was nothing in this woman’s background to give her the kind of ideas she, she just was that sort of creature of her own accord. A born revolutionary who could take the quiet moments out to enjoy a sunset, or pick some berries and think of a way to make money. What killed her was simple type II diabetes- easily treatable in a mild case such as hers. Except that there was no doctor to diagnose her, no pharmacy where she might have received treatment, no money to buy her medicine. Any naturally occurring medicinal plants that might have helped her were long forgotten- by governmental decree, the region had been forced to surrender all vestiges of its traditional culture in 1960. There was no readily available substitute for sugar. There was no diet alternative to the heavy corn and potato starches she ate. In short, she died of poverty subsidized by war, and perpetuated by the greed of countless Central American coffee barons, and an economic system where Indians such as herself are not valued as human beings. She was a senseless victim of international politics.
She had loved the white roses from the tree in what was to be my yard, and at her wake I laid a white rose in her hand, alongside a white feather. Escape this place, I wanted to tell her, go where your talents will not be wasted. I hope I did not offend anyone with my pagan ritual at her Catholic funeral. I only knew her for two months, but her spirit and energy were inspiring, and still inspire me to this day. Rosanio and I would work many long hours in the following months trying to flesh out her dreams into reality. He and I barely made it to her burial, held after a day and night long vigil we spent in her living room. Of all people, it was Dona Vicenta who had first arrived at Apollonia’s house, quickly taking charge of putting all able-bodied women to work to show her rival the proper last respects. It didn’t matter any more that Apollonia’s son had once cheated her Eusebio out of a donkey- there was serious work to do. I think Vicenta missed her the moment the news was received, and the following months would prove her to be a much changed and subdued woman. She eventually even united her group with Apollonia’s to keep the viveros alive. For she had finally realized what Apollonia was saying all along- the trees really are our future, and so much will depend on them.
The morning of the burial, Rosanio and I had a work engagement 10 miles away, and left the vigil to take care of business. There I was up to my ankles in sheep manure, wearing my one black evening dress tucked up underneath my jeans and flannel shirt, weighing lambs and taking measurements of their jawbones. We finished with 15 minutes to spare, and I’ll be damned if we didn’t actually make it. Rosanio took some shortcuts across mountain passes that I didn’t think a goat could walk, let alone a dirt bike run. I was never so terrified in my life, as we rounded turns and jumped boulders, trying to get to the cemetery in time. After almost wiping out twice, we finally got there, mud splattered and out of breath, and I stripped out of my work clothes just in time to see her body interred into the vivid blue sarcophagus, her final resting-place. There her spirit would sit, until the Day of the Dead, when her family would come to decorate the grave, and release her soul for its one day of freedom. The steady soaking rain that had been falling since she died, ended abruptly as we shut her into her tomb. Looking back, I should have had the foresight to take into account that it was Rosanio, not Adam, standing at my side when we buried my first friend in town, and also Rosanio who later helped us keep this vivid woman’s dreams alive. Rosanio, who has something of her spirit in him- a self-made man with a vision for a better future and a smile that could warm your heart on the coldest day. It amazes me that two of the finest human beings I have ever met came from this same small village that you won't find on any map.
Dry season in the mountains paints every object, person, animal, and surface with the color of drabness and dust. Almost all plant life dies completely. Wells run dry, and the parched feeling is unrelenting. Villagers wait in line at 3:00 in the morning for water to run from a line to a better well than our own. It is held in faith that the rains will come again to relieve the drought on June 14th of every year. This is after all Latin America, the place of extremes, and place also where the line between the seen and unseen often blurs. The thin space between the worlds is more likely to break open here, and on that special night, watching the fog lift, I was witness to the first true miracle I recognized. It was the kind of simple miracle that inspires people to go ahead and truly make the best of their lives. It had simply never occured to me, until Dona Apollonia’s last words were repeated to me, just how strong one determined woman’s will can be.
You see, before the forests were depleted on this mountaintop, rains used to come more regularly, even throughout the dry season. Gentle soaking rains, just enough to quench the thirst and take off the edge, and keep a few green things alive. People just don’t remember that because most of them were refugees, fleeing for their lives from death squads and the Guatemalan government. There was no time for two entire generations of people to learn about the ecology of place, and there was no one to teach them. Apollonia paid attention, but more importantly, never forgot the lessons learned as a child, from her Maya forbears before assimilation. Bring back the forests, and you will restore moderation of climate. It was the deforestation, not the will of God, that made the dry season so unbearable.
The night Apollonia passed on, Stacy, who had become one of her best friends, dreamed she was visited by this kind woman. The visitation happened right around 2:00 in the morning, just as I was awakening to the wondrous sight of tendrils of mist lifting their way playfully into the air. Not just around me, but as far I could see in the moonlight, all across the mountaintop. She said to Stacy in her dream, ‘Good bye, and always go with God. I have one last thing to do’. I now truly believe I was watching her soul being freed to perform her one last act of love in the thin space where the Creator touches the world in the mountains of Latin America.
For, I learned afterwards, when Stacy was ready to talk about it, that she may have heard Apollonia’s last earthly prayer to her God. The day preceding her death, only a couple of hours before collapsing from diabetic shock, she had been talking to Stacy again of her vision of trees. Apollonia said to Stacy, during this talk, ‘If I could do one thing for the people here, I would show them how different their future could be.” When Stacy asked what she meant by that, Apollonia replied, without hesitation, “ I would make it rain in the dry season”
.
![[send message]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/mail.png){kind=small}
![[befriend]](https://www.writerscafe.org/images/friend.png){kind=small}
Share This
Email
Facebook
Twitter
Read Request
My Library
Flag Writing
