Mission Accomplished...kind of

It’s been a while since the last post because we’ve been traveling a lot lately. I’ll do my best to update you :o)

Last week we went up to Serrinha (the same community where we had the mass) to install an underground dam near on of their main wells. It was an experience that I learned a lot from. It was both a communal success and a personal failure at the same time. I’ll explain.

This dam is important for a number of reasons. First of all, they’re going to build 26 water cisterns over the next year. Each house will collect the rain water off the roof and pipe it into the cistern to be used during the dry season for home use. They’re going to modify it a little, since there aren’t any families living up there, and use the cisterns to help w/crop irrigation too. They’re hoping to have at least 5 finished and full before this rainy season ends. The rest, we hope, will be filled by this well where we installed the dam. Unlike some of the other wells, it never goes dry. It gets low, but never dry. There’s an electric pump there that runs off of solar energy, so the water can be piped just about anywhere to fill up the cisterns. So, if we can keep that dam as full as possible during the dry season, then it’ll help fill up the cisterns in the coming months.

To give you an idea of the area, the well sits on one end of a small valley between two hills. Makes sense, right? The rainwater runs off the hills down into the valley and fills up the well. However, a lot of water runs down the hills, into the valley, and then continues running down the valley. Our goal was to slow down the water run within the valley, and keep it closer to the well. The idea was to dig a trench across the valley (hitting rock on the bottom) lay our plastic against one side of the trench creating a sort of impermeable wall, and then fill it in again. Our tools: thick plastic, picks, shovels, hoes and a lot of man-power.

There was one problem: a giant cashew tree. It’s probably been standing there for a hundred years, about 20 feet down-flow from the well. We had to decide whether to put the dam on the well side of the tree or on the other side. As the resident biologist I was asked what I thought. Obviously we didn’t want to hurt the tree. I looked at the tree, looked at the well, and said that the main roots probably went either straight down (like a tap root) or towards the well, since that’s where the most water is. So, the men started to dig on the other side of the tree. Well, I was wrong, and looking back now, I realize that had I spent a little more time thinking about it I would have suggested we dig on the other side. The tree was in fact leaning towards the well, so obviously the roots were running in the opposite direction in order to counterbalance the tree’s weight. (I know this is probably confusing, the pictures above should make it easier to understand) Within a couple hours it became very apparent that the main roots of the tree were running directly through our trench. The guys decided to cut through them. At this point it started to rain. Andy and John went to the school to make some lemonade for everyone and I stayed for a bit to keep watching. Eventually I went back to the school too.

Within half and hour we saw the men walk by in the rain with their shovels and picks, and Ribamar said that the hole had collapsed in on itself because of the rain. The men, however, were in good spirits and said they’d just finish it up the next day.

We woke up the next day to the news that the cashew tree had fallen down during the night. I felt so guilty I was almost sick. I was so disappointed in myself. The only consolation was that there were so many other things that could have gone wrong because of the fallen tree. I went down there to look. The two main branches had just barely missed the well, they landed on either side. Attached to one of the branches was the electric line that ran to the pump. It was pulled tight, but it hadn’t broken or ripped out of any connection. All things considered, we were very lucky. It just created more work for the farmers, who were already spending time doing this project instead of taking care of their crops. They pruned off some of the branches, freed the electric wire, left the rest of the tree as it was and started digging the hole again.

In true Brasilian fashion, the guys tried to make me feel better. They said it was an old tree that didn’t make much fruit any more, and that they would plant other, more useful and shady trees there in its place…but I still felt (still feel) horrible. All those families have countless memories of climbing and playing and eating of that tree by the well…

That day, I let Andy and John make the decisions with the guys. I had a really hard time trusting myself. If I couldn’t be trusted to make a decision concerning something I know a little about (trees), how could I be trusted to make decisions about something I know nothing about (dams). I realize now that it wasn’t entirely my fault, and I’m not writing this to ask for sympathy or consolation. Someone very close to me told me before I left to write about the good and the bad, that this was going to be an amazing learning experience, so I’m just trying to share how I’m growing and learning. Even if I learn some things the hard way.

It was almost lunch time when we finally hit rock all the way across the trench. The hole ended up being about 2 meters (~6 ft) deep, a meter (~3ft) wide, and about 10 meters (~30ft) long. It was a big hole. Senhor Geraldo rallied the troops and decided to finish the project before lunch break. Water was flowing into the hole from the direction of the dam (a good sign, as long as we could trap it), so that had to be bailed out before we started. The plastic was lowered in slowly, and folded at the bottom to create a sort of “L” to trap the water. I jumped in and helped. That, more than anything, made me feel better. I’m a hands-on type of girl, and it was nice to feel like I was tangibly helping after making such a blunder. The plastic sheets were only a meter wide, so we lowered another layer down behind the first sheet to overlap just a little bit. Then dirt and mud and rocks were packed in tight to keep the two layers together. Man did I get dirty. It was a wonderful feeling.

The men worked so hard. It was amazing to watch them shovel and ho and dig tirelessly. It’s easy to see how Ribamar and Mauro can eat a bucket of food at lunch. To them, this was just another day of work. I’m sure they sweat just as much raising their crops. And they do it to feed their families. The more time I spend with them, the more admirable they become.

All the water that flowed into the hole while we were working stayed there. It didn’t run through. In fact, it made a sort of quick-sand situation, and no matter how much dirt we piled on top, the area stayed saturated. It could be that the ground just wasn’t packed as tightly, but I like to look at it as a tentative sign of success. I have hope that it’ll work. We won’t be around to see the results since they’ll appear during the dry season.

The men left the fallen tree there. Some have hope that it’ll continue to grow. In this time of Easter, a time of resurrection, who knows? That’s my selfish wish too, that it’s not really dead. But, like the dam, that’ll take months to find out. I won’t be here. I’m still trying to figure out what I learned and in what way I can grow as the tree dies. I think that’ll take a while as well.