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Hurricane Paul
Hurricane Paul was a hurricane that ultimately struck Mexico as a tropical depression in October of 2006... 5,000 houses were damaged from the flooding, displacing 20,000 people. The passage of the storm damaged over 3,700 acres (1,500 hectares) of crop lands, primarily beans and corn...
Growing up in a shanty town, surviving rape, dirty water, countless illnesses and finally the death of a parent, you really do start feel like nothing worse could happen; you feel omnipotent. And together, we believed we had survived worst storms. A narcissistic attitude I know but at 18 the idea of being one of only a handful of people standing boldly against the storm seemed exciting, courageous!
The neighbors stopped by first mentioning only very weakly that we ought to follow them to the main road and board the waiting busses so that we might seek shelter at the local schools located on high ground. The safe route is the boring route and so as the winds continued to build, my friends and I worked to reinforce the shack we had chosen as our fortress. When there was nothing else to do and the rain began to fall, we danced about screaming with delight as the raindrops, as big as a baby's fist, hammered down on us.
Instead of wavering, our nerve in fact grew. The excitement and our courage blinded us to the rising waters. It wasn't until the water covered the floor and it we sat huddled together on the only bed off the floor in the pitch back darkness of early morning or late night that we began to wonder about our safety.
As dawn arrived, the rain stopped but the water level in the hut did not diminish. Shivering, exhausted with lack of sleep, we waded through the now almost knee deep water and out into the muddy area in front of the shack. Seeing the sun emboldened us. We hugged and cheered. The terror of the last night now had meaning. It was all temporary. We were safe and more invincible now than ever. I think I even might have cried.
In our sleep deprived stupor, there were things that we failed to put together or make sense of. I remember them all clearly. It's not as if we didn't see them it's just in the context of the excitement and the triumph we felt paired with the relief and lack of sleep what was out there seemed manageable.
I think back on this now and have to laugh at my naivety. What a hurricane brings is never manageable. I remember my younger sister in the middle of the night rocked front to back worrying her rosary and praying like someone gone mad. I saw her as weak or stupid, succumbing to fear. I thought that I alone could perhaps not tame the storm but somehow ride it, share the excitement it had to offer. Of course I was wrong. My praying sister was wrong too. You cannot beg a storm, you cannot ride a storm, you cannot befriend a storm, and the enjoyment of a hurricane is short lived at best. There is only one thing to do: get away.
The clouds were brightly colored on the surface from the sun but dark and thick looking and moving in a circle about us. Right above us there was the clearest, most beautiful sky I have ever scene. I though to myself that having this perfect moment was payment for the suffering we had endured.
Here's another thing about the hurricane: It does not know nor care about fairness, payment or balance. It may treat you special for a while, but only a while. It is the hurricane.
There is this too: It is not evil. People, especially the praying ones think that maybe it is evil. They seek to ward it off. No, the destruction it inflicts is a result only of it being a storm. It does not spare nor does it punish. It is a hurricane. It knows nothing of you. It cares not for nor against you. Us.
The sun rose and was snuffed out all at the same time. The quiet about us became thick. Then there was this "shhhhh" sound. It was so loud some of us covered our ears. Someone shouted and pointed. Like a blanket being drawn across the flats to our meager hill, the rain came at us. Only, it was not rain.
Back inside and huddled together on the bed, we could hear a strange sound like someone pounding with a million hammers on the roof and walls. Part of the roof gave way and great balls of ice, some the size of an infant's head, crashed through the gape. There was lightning too. One of us had the sense to push the bed away from the metal walls. Some one cried. My sister prayed. One of the boys looked right at me and told me that this was all my fault. This had been my idea, this was my fault. We were all going to die and as the oldest in the group, I was going straight to hell. And if we did all survive, he was going to punch me right in the face as hard as he could despite the fact that I was a girl and it was a sin.
There would be another pause I insisted. I won't stay like this; it can't get worse. Remember dancing in the rain last night? Wasn't that fun? Remember the sun in the sky this morning? And as I spoke the hail stopped. There was silence. To my right I heard someone laugh, a kind of snort. I was feeling it too: the thrill of having cheated death for real.
Then it really started to rain.
We lost one of the children when everything began floating away. I never knew there could be so much water. Some of us didn't really know how to swim, not that swimming for the next two days was really an option. We held tight to a floating bit of debris. An empty row boat somehow found us, nudging us on the backs of our legs like a friendly dog. After a lot of work, we all managed to get in. That's when we noticed that one of us was missing.
From the boat, the youngest gestured sleepily at a brand new red cooler that lazily strolled past. There were other treasures brought to us from the hurricane, some even came from the rich parts of town. Normally we would have loved to have any of them but being thus defeated, they did not interested us. A cat paddled madly along side for a while, snorting to keep the water out of its nose. It looked at us. We looked away until when we looked back it was no longer there.
And through it all, it rained.
And then it stopped. It just stopped.
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When the waters went down and the clouds receded, they told me my anger was good — it would help me to work at recovery. They told me that the anger was an indication that I was healing from the loss of the child from our group. There was a deeper healing that needed to happen, a healing that would continue long after the crops had been replanted and the houses repaired. There was the healing of my confidence. I had stood against the hurricane and lost. Auntie, the elderly woman who cares for those of us who are orphans or near orphans like me, says I'm silly to think that I could have won against such a force.
"The only law Hurricane Paul follows is his own," she says. "He must win; losing is not an option. It's not your fault that you were injured. He is not evil. You just got in the way."
"Why did you not tell me this before Auntie?" I asked.
"Child! We did tell you! There was nothing we could do to dissuade you. Look in your heart, you will know this is true."
I know this to be true. And I am still angry, angry for losing but more angry for fighting such a useless fight.
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Hurricane Paul is not evil but like all hurricanes it will cut you down if you stand in it's way.
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