Lions in the Sky: It’s Rainy Season in Veracruz

For the past two nights, early morning storms have tumbled in on top of us. Or, more accurately, charged, with flags raised and hoofs pounding. The first roll of thunder is the battle cry. The temperature drops, the wind begins to howl, and buckets upon buckets of (thankfully not boiling) water is dropped upon us from the battlements in the sky. Within seconds the battle is raging. The armies must have lions, because the only sound I hear is their roars, being ripped from their throats and falling down onto the house in great sheaths of lightening. The lightening here doesn’t come down in strikes, like it does at home. That’s far too tame. The lightening here lights up the whole sky and reveals, for a few seconds, the world as its shaken.
Our house only has part of a roof. The other part, above the stairs, is nothing more than tarps and tin, where one day there will be huge windows to let in the afternoon sun. A nice idea, but problematic at times. The night of the first storm, I got up and couldn’t go back to bed. Not with that kind of thunder! So I walked out into the centre of the house, and was surprised to find myself standing in the middle of a lake. The lake was being plentifully fed by blowing rain and forbidden waterfalls running down the walls and stairs. The tarps had decided that there was no point in fighting the storm, and had joined it instead.
Watching the storm from the top of the stairs was electrifying. It took all the self-restraint I had to force myself not to go on the roof. “Lightening. Death. Lightening! Death!” I had to keep repeating inside my head. But I could only imagine the feeling of the wind and rain whipping around my body, trying to pull me along into their world like they were to the trees outside. The lightening, so persistent that there were more moments of light than dark, also wanted to play. But a storm is a dangerous playmate- this I had to remember. So instead, I watched from the window until I remembered I was wearing only shorts and a t-shirt. I crawled back into bed with cold feet, a wet head, and a happy heart, and I curled up to wait for the song of the storm to pull me back to sleep.

Now, I have an admission to make. I did something silly. Maybe it was the storm that charmed me or maybe it was something else entirely, but I decided that I had skin of steel, impervious to the sun. “Nah, there was a storm. It won’t be too hot… I don’t need sunscreen,” I thought, standing beneath the burning sun, it beating down on me stronger than ever as I leaned down to hoe the ground. Somehow, I still managed to convince myself that “I’ll just sweat it off anyway. I’ll be fine!” The end of this story hardly needs to be told. A angry red back that I don’t dare to sleep on, and an embarrassment at my own folly thats almost as fiery. I’ll tell myself it could have been a lot worse. It could have been charbroiled, and ready to serve. And also, hey- its tradition to get one sunburn at the beginning of a trip… right? But in reality- well, its a good reminder that I’m not, in fact, impervious to anything.

Another outcome of the tempest over our house was that the seeds from the Neem trees were shaken loose. The ranch sells Neem products internationally- pills, dried leaves for tea, soap, shampoo, oil, even seeds. It has numerous healing benefits- from helping head and stomach aches to regulating blood pressure. So, with the seeds covering the ground, we set to work picking them up. I have to admit that I like planting seeds infinitely more than I like collecting them. Planting seeds is like tucking in thousands of potential wishes. They can be wishes that are huge- like the hope for a world where food shortages barely exist, urban gardens are more common than basketball hoops, and imports and exports of food hardly even remain necessary because people have remembered the joy of waiting on the tips of their toes for the first taste of raspberries in the summer. They can also be little wishes- a wish to your seeds goodnight, assuring them you’ll see them in the morning when they wake up, fresh and delicate and green.
Collecting seeds, on the other hand, conjures for me no thoughts of a better world. Crawling down the rows of trees, my hands got more and more coated in the sticky, sour juice. The juice made sure to remind me where each and every one of my little cuts and scrapes was. Every time I walked to the bucket and let fall my grudgingly won handful, I looked back to see an endless amount still there, waiting innocently. Working in the shade we could look up and see the thousands more seeds hanging above us, waiting to join their brothers and sisters that had hidden themselves among the decomposing leaves. The fallen seeds, however, weren’t the only things that had hidden themselves there. The leaves make a perfect home for the ‘picas’- mosquitoes, midges, and any other biting bug. As I moved through, they come out in swarms to feast upon the meal that I had unwittingly presented them.
“Come on!” They must have called to each other, as they made a beeline for my ankles and knees, “Fresh meat, and its on our doorstep!”
On top of your house, in fact. And so, go ahead. Dig in girls, because I’ve heard revenge is sweet. And I can tell you agree.
Of course, there would be no wishes without something to wish for. And crawling down the rows of Neem trees definitely made me want to wish. Just, you know, not for exactly the same things as when I’m happily watering my newly planted seeds

P.S. Below we have complementary photos of me, completely unimpressed, and of Camilo. Camilo is the wonderful teacher who tells us what do to, how to do it, and, unless asked, rarely why.