Genesis/Exodus

Week 8

“All the fountains of the great abyss burst forth, and the floodgates of the sky were opened.” Gn 7, 11.

Wow. That's really all I can say about the weather we've have this past week. Monday night the floodgates were opened and the heavens gave Puerto Lopez a sound drenching. There are a lot of things I've been thankful for on this trip, but the thing I'm most thankful for (so far, at least) is that I wasn't at Playita that night. Jose Luis and Lucho, who had the misfortune of patrolling that night, came back at two in the morning because the camp was... well... gone. Runoff from the hills flooded the camp, cutting about a foot into the sand right underneath the tent. The bottom section of the path was also flooded; Jose Luis said there was water up to his waist and they practically had to swim out.

Here in Puerto Lopez, our courtyard filled with water up to the steps, though thankfully the house didn't flood. Many others were not so lucky. For some reason, a lot buildings in Puerto Lopez are below street level. This is clearly a ridiculous idea for a place that receives as much rain at the Costa does. All of these buildings had several feet of water, and the next day people all over town were bailing out their houses with buckets.

The next day was nice, and the day after, but then that night the rain returned, not quite as strong, but more than strong enough. There was thunder and lightning, too. Lightning is not rare here, but I had yet to hear thunder accompany it. This time, there was thunder—and lots of it. Patacon (the cat) and Ruco (the dog) were absolutely terrified. The courtyard and peoples' houses flooded again.

The next day was nice again, but we had to deal with the aftermath of the previous days' storms. Five of us volunteers and about 45 other people took three boats out to the Isla de la Plata to clean up the debris left by the storm. There used to be a concrete staircase leading up from the base of the island to the top, where the path divided to reach the different parts of the island. I say “used to” because the rain washed the whole thing out. There were pieces of concrete everywhere, all the way down to the beach. I never saw where the staircase was, because I never made it that far inland, but I made it at least a quarter of a mile in without reaching the origin point of all the concrete.

We spend most of the day loading chunks of concrete into old fertilizer sacks and carrying them down to the beach to make a big pile next to the rangers' house. It was hard work. I'm a bad judge of weights and distances, but I'd say those sacks weighed over 60 pounds—and we had to carry them increasingly further distances, with the sharp broken edges digging into our backs. Me and two other girls from Equilibrio Azul were basically the only females there, and it was a little intimidating to work alongside all those men who were so much stronger than us, but the work was, in a strange way, very satisfying.

The cleanup crew returned to the island the next day, sans me, (I had homework) to finish the job. Like with Playita, I caught a lucky break, because it rained almost a whole day and the people who went to the island had a horrible time of it. The path turned into a honest-to-God river, with rushing water up to their knees. There was little work for the EA volunteers, but they had to wait for all of the other workers before they could come back to Puerto Lopez. Again, I'm very grateful I wasn't there.

To keep with the Biblical theme of my title, today is the first day of my last week in Puerto Lopez. I'm grateful for that, too. I've had a lot of fun here in Puerto Lopez, and I honestly like the town, but I'm ready to go—ready to see the rest of the country and ready to head home, ready for an exodus. It's a little hasty, a little unexpected, since it's a week earlier than I'd planned, but it has been long-awaited. It's time to move on.