Rains at last!

After the summer months of too much sun, when many complained of the oven hot temperatures and drying wells, it was indeed a great blessing to hear the raindrops pummeling our roofs the other night. And this morning, it rained hard again. And for a change, it was impossibly awesome to see the leaves drenched with water and not with dust. It was wonderful to see the streets dribbled with quenching rain.

Before the rains, I was in our farm. It was heart-wrenching to see trees baked under the sun. Avocado trees, mangoes, calamansi, poncan, guavas, jackfruit, tambis, coconuts, chicos - all were already fruit bearing yet it was sad to see their leaves in different shades of brown. Grasses and flowers had dried. My once green farm had gradually turned into a virtual kaingin.

Just yesterday, the radio stations were inundated with complaints of residents that for the first time their wells had dried up. They surmised that underground water was being sucked away to the wells of some of their enterprising neighbors who were selling water to commercial establishments in the city. The neighbors cannot stop their activity because, as they explained, many hotels, restaurants, hospitals, etc. will be deprived of water. And it didn't help when experts warned that when underground fresh water is used up, salt water seeps in. And when salt water settles in the water table, it will no longer go away.

In our house, it never happened before that air went out of our faucets, instead of water. Parang magic. Metro Iloilo Waterworks District was helpless. They were even clueless as to why the bills of their clients reflected exorbitant amounts even if the clients had not seen water from their faucets for months.

Indeed, you would never appreciate the importance of water from the taps until you're deprived of it. Since last March, we seldom had water from the faucets. Lately, the faucets stopped giving out water for more than 2 weeks straight. We were thankful we had a well inside our compound. But it was hard to handle our jurassic pump connected to the well. Parang antiquated na gym device which would create a painful bulge in your testicles (hernia) rather than create the manly bulge in the arms and the shoulders. Transporting the pails of water to inside the bathroom was equally demanding to the lungs. Mas OK mag-jogging. While jogging, puwede ka magpa-porma. But how can you do porma when you are fetching water for your bath? In our barriotic culture, we take a bath first before we do porma. Diyahe naman maligo sa labas. Hindi ako si Manny Villar. Dahil siya naliligo sa dagat ng basura.

After watching the rains outside today, lo and behold, water came out of our taps. Allelujah! We filled all the containers in the house. We cleaned everything that needed to be cleaned. I had a very long bath. Possibly I lost 5 pounds as I really rubbed my skin of pounds of libag with a flat stone I picked up from the riverbank near the farm. It was the first time in months that my body had a thorough rinsing. Hindi na ako nangangati sa residual soap na dumidikit pa sa balat ko dahil sa kawawalan ng tubig. Sarap ng feeling. I smelled great. And our bathroom smelled clean after so many months.@