Rain kept the entire country in its grip for five days. It was the rain of the century! Older folks remembered no such rains nor did written records indicate any such downpours since data was kept. The sheer quantity of water that dropped from the sky was devastating: crops were lost, roads and bridges washed away, roofs caved in and walls crumbled. The rains have long since subsided and the country has been drying out; repercussions however are still felt and will be for a long time to come. 

We were lucky: our roof held, our house stood and our grapes set tight. We experienced some minor inconveniences but nothing major broke or gave us trouble. The roof of the barn, our only mud structure, started sagging on the last rainy day. Water had found its way through the roof and was eating away at the mud bricks which hold the supporting beams; slowly but surely the roof tilted. Arn buttressed the beams with large tree trunks laying around on the property; it still sits this way, we are waiting for someone who knows how to fix this type of wall. Many houses in the area, constructed of mud bricks had similar problems; obviously in this desert climate long stretches of rain are not expected.        

The worst of our problems was the financial loss we took on our grapes, many had gone sour and many were lost from its vines. We had to wait for a week before we could harvest and by the time the ground was dry and the heavy trucks could pass it was La Semana Santa, the week before Easter. Our first vineyard was harvested on Easter with chilly temperatures and mud still covering the furrows. Harvesters showed up at early dawn and worked till sunset. No sun had warmed the grapes and the sugar content remained below the required sugar level affecting the price badly. By late afternoon the grade crept up and when Arn accompanied the last load of the day he was in for a pleasant surprise; the winery upped the grade, just shy of its mark, to a passable level granting us our fist ten-thousand kilos for a good price. And so it went from then on; half our crop was up to standard, half did not make it.

A final surprise caught us off guard about a week after the rains had stopped: ants! We had noticed a few carpenter ants, big black ones, creeping up the walls, along the beams and into the roof. Carpenter ants eat wood and will destroy the wooden beams supporting the house, much like termites. We let it go for a few days thinking the onset of cold nights would take care of it. Big mistake!! Apparently many took shelter in the dirt of the roof hiding from the wet and cold during the rains. When the ants crawling around appeared in excessive numbers we took action and sprayed with an insecticide said to penetrate the nest. Well, it most certainly did! Ants dropped from the roof into the sink, onto the stove and into my pots and pans, each fall accompanied with a clear ‘plunk’. Cooking became a dance; it rained dead ants! Daily we swept away a black layer and even though I marveled at the heroics of the survivors (they haul their dead friends straight up a wall), I was more than happy to see them go.

It is the end of our harvest season for which we longed with all our might. We welcome the relative quiet of fall and we are looking forward to a season of rest and relaxation. Nonetheless, we look around at our work and know we have come a long way. Life here is no longer an unfamiliar blur of all work and no play. Part of our dreams has become reality: this summer we set outside on our patio under the shade of the grape arbor around food-laden tables in the company of friends. It took us a more than a year, but we have arrived!

To each of you: have a wonderful spring and enjoy the summer to come.