Back at the canoe I found my first acquaintance visiting with another fellow about his age, 40 or so, and a young woman, standing among a huge collection of 5 gallon blue plastic jugs, just offloaded from the panga I’d seen approaching earlier. A burst of excited rapid Spanish and the two men ran a short ways up the arroyo. They wrestled briefly with a 2” black plastic pipe lying in the arroyo bottom. A short length of inner tube was wrapped around and around the pipe and held with tie wire but was vigorously squirting water out onto the sand. They twisted and shoved the ends of the broken pipe against each other and tightened the bandage and the leak almost stopped. The younger woman held the far end of the pipe in one hand and a tin funnel in the other, crouched over a jug. . .”Is it coming out yet?” “Yes, it’s coming, it’s good. . .”
I’d noticed the pipe on the arroyo bed earlier but hadn’t clearly understood
it’s use before. I followed it perhaps 1000 feet or more up the canyon and
found a stone and concrete box there, built just inside the bed of the stream,
five sided, with the pointed end upstream, standing above the streambed perhaps
3 or 4 feet. The woman with the red shorts was standing on top of the box,
which was actually a hand dug well going down several feet below the stream
bed, with two feet of water standing in the bottom. She hauled a 5 gallon
bucket of water up from the well through a trapdoor in the lid, hoisted it up
over her head to pour into a half barrel perched on a stand at about head height.
The black plastic pipe came out the bottom of the half barrel and began its
winding way to the beach. The woman’s face glistened with perspiration though
the morning was still cool. She didn’t rest between buckets. There were a
great many jugs waiting on the beach. When she had the half barrel filled for
a moment she quickly got down on hands and knees and went to scrubbing baby
clothes in a tin basin. I offered to bail water for a while, though I told
her I was a poor office clerk and not likely to last long. She assured me I
was welcome to bail as much water as I liked, she’d be happy to scrub baby clothes
while I did. I asked whose the clothes were. . .her grand daughter. . .and
where they lived. . .in the first of the camps, close under the cliff. . .and
how often they came for water. . .every eight days or sometimes on the seventh.
. .and is the water good for drinking… no, for that we go to Dolores, this is
too salty. . .and is there a school here. . .oh yes, but the maestra is sick
and the school has been closed this month. She’s in La Paz right now. I asked
how old the lady was. . .44. . .and was that her husband with the panga. . .yes,
and my younger daughter, she’s sixteen (I had thought perhaps she was 18 or
20, a handsome young woman, muscular and straight, but still very feminine).
I was tiring and only just keeping the flow of water out the half barrel. My
host kept an eye on me, finished scrubbing the baby clothes and wrung them out.
. .”Are you finished yet? She asked?” I grimaced, but kept going a while longer.
“Well, how old are you?” she asked. “Fifty five” I said, and dumped yet another
ton of water in the half barrel. No doubt my face was bright red to the back
of my bald spot by then. . .”Oh.. .well, you’re still quite strong for being
so old. . .” Gee, thanks. I gave up and handed her the bucket’s rope (complete
with the chunk of fishing weight that made it tip over in the water and bang
on your knee cap and the knots that pull the hide off your palms as you lift
the bucket out of the well). She said thank you quite nicely then started when
she saw how low I’d let the water get in the half barrel and quickly tossed
two buckets in to catch up. Whew.
I hiked back to the beach and saw the boat about a third full of jugs, with
the skipper just easing it off the beach to keep it floating as the load increased
and the daughter neatly shifting funnel and pipe from jug to jug without spilling
more than a spoonful or two at a time. Dad walked up from the water’s edge,
picked up a 5 gallon jug in each hand and strolled casually back to the boat.
Thinking to be helpful one more time, I bent down as I walked by and put my
hands around the toggles of the next two jugs in line, bent at the knees and
darned near didn’t straighten up again. Goodness. Staggered through the loose
stones and sand down to the water’s edge and set down my load. Stared at the
jugs in the boat, back to the jugs still waiting to be filled and decided to
make one more trip. Said my goodbyes and grabbed the canoe to head for the
water. It came hard and loud giggles came from the crowd on the beach. The
neighbor’s anchor was still firmly tied to the painter. Oops. Someone I hadn’t
met yet strode to the rescue, untied my half hitches and tossed me the line.
. .then packed the anchor back away under the fish cleaning table at the top
of the beach.