On Good Rain: From a Mexican Village

The time of the rains are good for everyone. The maize is growing well. There are lots of vegetables: tomatillos, tomates, chayotes, calabaza (squash), chilitos. Oh the chayotes, you should see them. There’s lots of milk and it’s so rich that if you leave it in a pitcher for just an hour, there’s a layer of cream on the top. Everyone is eating well, not just tortillas and frijoles (maize and beans), but fruits and vegetables and lots of milk to drink.

All the dams are full and soon they will have to open them so that they do not burst. And it’s easy to wash yourself. That isn’t always so in our village which is very poor in water. But now you can go to any cañada (steep-sided valley running into the hills) and find pools of water and wash yourself in them. Even the birds are happy.

And it’s very beautiful. There are streams coming down from the Bufa (cliffs along one side of Guanajuato). Towards Sauceda the fields are white with the flowers of San Juan. The people cut armfuls and take them to the market in Irapuato to sell them. They’re always white–the roses of San Juan we call them. And the aroma–it’s like having a jar of perfume.

There’s another flower, estrellita, white and purple. It’s a kind of onion but it doesn’t smell. And in the sierra there are wild nardos (tuberroses) in all different colors. They too have a wonderful aroma.

And the fruits grow big and juicy–the membrillos (quinces) are big as [two hands held somewhat apart]. And the vining plants are growing over the fruit trees and turning them white with their flowers.

We haven’t seen rains like this in years. It rains every night, a gentle rain that soaks into the ground. It’s a good rain not like the rain that comes with thunder and destroys the plants and runs off the soil. The pools that are usually full of white brackish water are now full of beautiful clear water, good water.

There will be a good maize harvest this year. The people in the villages will have enough for themselves and their pigs and chicken and some to sell too.

On the 20 August 2002, Don Bruno stood in my garden in Guanajuato, Mexico and delivered this wonderful prose poem.  I immediately rushed to my study and tried to render the cadences as best I could in English.

Here he is in his milpa (corn/bean/squash/quelite field) about ten miles outside the city of Guanajuato.

Don Bruno of the state of Guanajuato in central Mexico

Don Bruno, who cared for my garden, for fifteen years was a small farmer (he called himself a peon or campesino), a bit of a dandy, and very thoughtful. He taught me an enormous amount about how people in the villages viewed Mexican history in the second half of the twentieth century. It was he who told me about mules, about the lawlessness following the Revolution, about curanderos (traditional medicine), about the economics of campesino maize, about the bracero program (legal but badly administered program of guest workers in the US), and about brujería (magic).

We’re having rain in central Texas, good rain, steady rain, not just gully washers. It seems the right moment to post this treasured memory about what rain can mean.

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