And bountiful harvests
May all medicines be effective
And wholesome prayers bear fruit
--Shantideva, from The Way of the
Bodhisattva
August
3
The
rain came in the night, falling in the darkness as we lay to sleep. It was
gentle as it began, pattering soft against the sheet of greenhouse plastic lain
over our earthen roof. We woke first an hour before midnight to the sound of a
steady drip in the center of the room. Looking to the northern wall,
yellow-brown mud ran down in a stream behind the stovepipe, gravelly mud-bricks
laid bare beneath the disappearing plaster. The rain was pouring now, harder
than I had ever seen it in this desert place. Dressing quickly we climbed the
ladder and drained the water from the lake that had gathered, replacing the
plastic as quickly as we could, anchoring the edges with branches and rocks.
The next time the drips had increased to five, all
four walls showing wetness along their upper edges. Dressing again, this time
in sodden clothes, we went out into the deluge. Now the water overflowed the
edges of the plastic, running down beneath it and soaking into the roof. I left
footprints in the mud as I moved over it. Returning inside a pool of water had
formed beneath the stove, running in from the weakened place beneath the drain
spout as we poured. We emptied and replaced pots, mopped up what water we could
with dampened rags, and lay down again. For some hours I didn’t sleep,
listening to the rain-sound. The fear I felt I learned from the people who know
this place, and have seen the waters swell.
The last time we woke it was just before dawn. The
rain had slackened to a mist, but the sound of the stream had increased,
roaring, a chorus of tumbling rocks. From the house, it sounded like a falls.
Dumping water once more we returned inside and held each other, waiting for the
light.
We began the walk down towards Tar early in the
morning, under clearing skies. The first stream crossing was difficult, making
a passage over wide-spaced boulders that had once stood scattered in a meadow.
I couldn’t make the second crossing (though Jason did, leaping a wide gap from
wet stone to stone); I waded, planting a length of branch downstream with each
step, thigh-deep in freezing, swirling water. On the other side we sat
together, looking down the valley. From cliff face to cliff face the stream
filled the narrow length of the canyon, a river now, pale brown, opaque,
boiling. There was no way.
We filled water at the spring as we returned up the
hill, stopping at our only neighbor’s house to bring him water and try to use a
telephone. Azhang Tsering Dorje was also stranded in the upper village, with a
tiny calf and a Jersey cow abundantly in milk. The phone line to the village
was cut, and the mobile didn’t work. He sent us back with a silver bowl of
fresh yogurt, offered us flour, vegetables, told us to come if there was
anything we might need.
So began our Sabbath. For three days we sat in sun
and scattering rain, watching the water rise. I watched it wondering what it
would mean in the village—ours, all of them. May there be timely rains, and bountiful harvests. The crop was
nearly ready in the fields. I wondered if the fields would still be there when
we could descend again, if the walls would stand. We sat, and waited, and
watched.
On the fourth day the waters had receded enough to
pass. Walking down we found the topography utterly transformed, the course of
the river completely displaced from what it had been. Boulders had been lifted
and set down again as if by giants, banks eroded, roots of old, old trees laid
bare. Young trees lay broken and scattered on the new mud flats. The river still
ran brown.
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