August 27, 2009

Thursday

Aug. 27, 2009

Today was an exceptionally hot day. Usually there’s a breeze that comes around at about 11:30 and again at about 3, but this morning there was nothing. By lunch time we were all stumbling in like beaten animals, and the 6 liters of water at each table were gone in the first 15 minutes. After lunch there was still no breeze, and there was no evidence of the usual afternoon cloud cover. We trudged back out to the site, eyeing our tools mournfully and glancing at the sky with little hope before letting out a communal sigh and dragging picks, shovels, wheelbarrows, buckets, and trowels to our assigned places. The usual chatter and singing were gone, replaced by grunts of effort and defeat against the heat and humid air which was more akin to a wet blanket.

Finally, a miracle.

From the clouds which had raced in over the hills like a phantom army, tiny drops of rain fell, carried by the wind which had finally woken from his slumber. With renewed energy and hope, we cleaned our areas and prepared for a storm. A few minutes later, we experienced fear when the drops seemed to vanish. But our hope returned with the next wave of rain, which rode in even faster than before. We all went home to shower, and I sat out on the porch and watched the rain fall in the courtyard.