Water, Water Everywhere

Last night a good friend, just returned to the area, came over so we could all go to Xico for supper, which we did, at El Campanario.  ¡Qué aventuras tuvieramos! Dark clouds had been tumbling through the skies all afternoon, but though it had rained a bit, it had not been sufficient to dampen our enthusiasm.  (We brushed aside our knowledge of recent rains in the Xalapa area.) But as we drove on the main road towards Xico, we got the distinct impression it had rained more in that direction than in our own area: rushing water overfilled the drainage ditches exploding against the small pedestrian bridges which crossed them. Water tumbled down the road.  Thunder cracked.  But still, the rain seemed to have slowed.  We pulled up across the street from the restaurant to see someone shut the light off inside it.  And the rain start up again.  S. ran, umbrella-less across the street to stand on its veranda. Jim, disconcerted by the fact that our umbrella didn't seem to want to open and anxious to get me and it and himself out of the rain, managed to lock the keys in the car.  And of course the lights going off signaled that the restaurant had closed.  What fools would be going out to eat this night?

Maybe we could eat across the street?  The manager, a small, plump, friendly woman smiled at our obvious disappointment.  Okay, you can eat here.  

And we did: just the three of us in a corner, most of the restaurant still dark.  And wonderful food, which is why we wanted to eat there and not across the street. S. and I had my favorite, a dish called No Que No.*  After dinner we talked and drank beer.   The lights flickered on and off several times.  The thunder boomed, lightening cracked directly overhead.  At some point it became clear we had to face leaving.  

The manager called a taxi.  The driver had come away from home to take us, and his wife and a child sat in the front seat.**  One of us is a bit plump, one a bit less plump, one a rather tall man, and we joked about squeezing in the back seat.  He laughed: once he had, he said, 23 children in his car!  On the roof? In the trunk? On the hood?  No! Inside the car!  I think he was kidding a bit.  Anyway, it was a merry ride home through the storm.

The rain let up as we drove down our street to the house, but still water flowed. It appeared that much of the dirt from the park a half a block uphill had poured down to our street. 

We rummaged for Jim's keys as the lights flickered on and off in the house. S. said maybe we should turn the fridge off since uneven current was bad for it. Hmm, I said, and the lights went out and stayed out. Does this happen to us often, asked S. It did for a while a month or so ago, but not recently.  But we felt our normal irritation about interrupted service in our poor, neglected colonia.  And then Scott drove us back to Xico to retrieve our car. Colonia Ursulo Galvan was not alone in the dark. The lights were out everywhere, including in Xico  I have no idea how much of the area lost luz.  

We made it home and lit candles and flashlights, said goodby to S. and settled in. The waterfall was roaring; I could just make it out: it looked like a faint, giant white cloud settled against the darkness.

The lights came on at some ungodly hour.  We woke up to them shining in our faces (it's hard to remember which switches were on, which off in the dark).  This morning, the sky was a lovely blue with innocent-looking puffs and streaks of white cloud drifting around.  The waterfall is still huge and turbulent, but there appear to be no ill effects in our community. 

However, flooding continued in Banderilla, and there was flooding in Xalapa's Centro. And the forecast predicts more rain starting today as onda tropical 8, tropical system 8 heads towards the state.

In Banderilla, citizens continue to say that the floods are due to poor maintenance as much as poor engineering to start with.  Below you see a picture I stole from yesterday's Diario de Xalapa showing the demonstration blocking Highway 140 and a picture of a man up to his neck in water.  He is reclining, by the way, not standing.  Reminds me just a teeny bit of that old picture of Mao's head floating on water which was supposed to convince us he was in good health.

According to El Diario, in some places, the standing water reached 70 centimeters in depth.

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*I have been told what "no que no" means (vaguely) and I can't remember (exactly).  There are songs and restaurants called No Que No and it appears in lyrics and tons of other places. I think it has the sense of "don't say no," or maybe "say it isn't so," but I could be wrong. It is one of the phrases that reminds me I am a foreigner.

**The taxi driver who took us to Caxa, the Xalapa bus terminal, for our van to the airport in Veracruz, brought along his mother.  It was after all three in the morning.