The other day, I went out at night, and a storm broke out.
It was a strange storm, the kind you know is coming, perhaps due to global warming, but you don't give it much thought.
With each passing year, the rainy season in El Salvador is no longer a season.
Sometimes I feel like it's not just the weather; maybe there's some celestial being crying harder and harder at the injustices happening in our little country.
Marina was with me in the car. Marina is a French girl who is in El Salvador learning about cacao, working on my uncle's farm.
Marina reminds me of the sea—perhaps because of her curls, which look like miniature waves trying to escape from her head as if a stylist octopus had given her a perm.
I was going to drop her off at her house when we saw the first one: a water truck slowly making its way up the street, like a turtle with insomnia, at 11:30 p.m.
“Is this water thing new?” she asked me.
I didn't answer. It had happened before, but never with such biblical drama.
The country had run out of water a few days ago. Many depended on cisterns, others on trucks like that one. In my apartment complex, we always had water, but I understood the seriousness of the situation.
At first, it was all courtesy. In the neighbors' WhatsApp group, they wrote that ANDA was going to cut off the water service from approximately 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. “No big deal,” we thought. It was something that often happened: if you were working that day, you didn't even notice; there was always a cistern, a tanker, or some miracle that left at least a little water to rinse yourself off.
They ended the message with an enthusiastic: “Thank God we'll have water.”
Two days later, another message. Another interruption. This time it sounded like Apocalypse Level 7. Co-workers and half the country repeating in unison: “No water, no water, no water.” It was by area, but it felt like the flood had come, and Noah had only invited a few.
Then another message arrived: "The cistern is less than half full. We must use water wisely." And they attached a list of rules as if we were desert scouts: bathe only once a day, use little water when washing your hands, don't waste, and so on. Things we should all do all the time, but only practice when a message in capital letters tells us to.
But what surprised me was not seeing a water truck. It was what we saw next. We continued down the road past the church near the Masferrer roundabout, and—mind you, it was still pouring rain—there was a very long line of people. Some in pajamas, others in rags, with jugs, bottles, whatever they could find. Waiting behind a tanker truck to ask for drinking water…while a storm was raging!
It was surreal. It was like a documentary narrated by David Attenborough:
“Here we observe the Salvadoran in its natural habitat, ignoring the heavenly water because it does not yet have a ‘purified’ seal. Fascinating.”
Marina said nothing…but I could have sworn that one of her curls moved on its own. Like a mermaid's antenna detecting tragedy.
The next day, someone sent me a meme: a photo of a garden full of jugs under the rain collecting water. The caption read: “Survival law level savings plan.”
On the way, we continued with Marina and counted at least seven more water trucks. And the irony is that, at the same time, the streets of San Salvador were flooded. Flooded with trash, with people who don't understand that the river is not a dump. Flooded by a government that doesn't clean up, by the tears of the world.
We are flooded, but without water.
And I thought: this is how the world feels lately. With wars, genocide, corruption, and pedophiles in power. With emotional, mental, spiritual storms... and yet we continue to line up to fill a basket, as if we were going to survive out of sheer stubbornness.
But there was Marina. She no longer looked entirely human. Her curls moved like seaweed in the current. Her skin shone like shy scales. And she said to me, in a calm, wave-like voice:
“Don't be afraid. Water always returns to where it belongs. And so do we.”
And for some reason... I believed her. Because maybe we are in chaos, yes.
But we are also learning to perform miracles with water tanks.
What a crazy life!
The water crisis was resolved, but it continues to rain in El Salvador.