Five days and nights of rain pause as I approach--summoned to join others at El Español.
Each step is a leg-jerk extraction of rubber boot, up and forward, sounding every suck of clasping mud.
I plod erratic steps, slip acrobatic slide to bridge below.
Blackness breaks.
Sunrise glows through.
I glimpse black-wetness,
reflections on black tires turned skyward.
Yes, dammit, yes, black tires turned skyward above rain-washed blue, red and cream.
This is the 5:00AM Magnolia,
outward bound, now top-side-down, suspended nose to tail, across Creek-gully El Español.
I see broken boards rain-washed clean but for mudded tracks--telltales of where the Magnolia slipped, how it slipped, how it flipped to where it lies wheel-side up.
With me, I bring neither skill nor tool, only camera and conversation.
Through millennial expanse of sub-tropical forest El Español has risen from dry to flood on whim after whim, season after season.
These years, though, it rises faster and higher.
The sponge is gone.
Each hard rain mines more soil from the once-forest floor.
Each flood scours more land above, deposits more silt below as El Español sculpts its gully with rises and rushes, slowings and spreadings through coastal plain to estuary and sea.
People came with determination to stay:
They cleared trees, built shelters that became houses.
They planted corn, planted cotton, extracted a harvest, carried it across El Español to market.
One year, when El Español was near dry, they built a bridge; poured a concrete buttress at each bank; placed two steel beams (separate by an axles length) from buttress to buttress--spanning the bottom trough of gully. They placed planking across the beams parallel to water's flow.
Above and at right angle to these planks (above and parallel with each beam ) they laid two narrow tracks--two planks each--targets for wheels.
There would be no curb--no guard rail to cast doubt on a driver's accuracy.
Even on a good day this bridge was a test of skill.
On bad days it tested with deep-muck or deep-dust, and weather blindness.
Tractor and truck, wagon and trailer, motorcycle, bicycle, hoof and foot arrived above,
bent right,
descended
through talcum-powder-dust of dry season,
descended
through slippery clay of wet season,
until that point where each vehicle must bend left (quickly left) for straight approach onto the bridge.
Each day, the 5:00AM Magnolia carries the earliest passengers and cargo thirty kilometers to market where it waits for midday return.
Each day, the driver is Jorge--skilled, occasionally reckless, always decisive.
This rainy morning, in black pre-dawn, from remote overnight station where he had kept dry in a hemp hammock under thatched roof, Jorge struggled his Magnolia through kilometers of muck.
Above El Español he ordered his passengers off, ordered his assistant off, then disappeared with his bus.
But for occasional brake lights that diminished as they descended, and headlights that illuminated the far bank, Jorge and his bus were no more than dark, phantom rectangle.
It is Jorge's common courtesy during rainy season to stop, offer passengers the option to walk down, across, and up the other side.
On a not-so-bad day, few would accept his offer.
Yesterday, a third of the bus emptied.
This morning, Jorge gave no option: "Everybody out!"
This was not the morning to make narrow appeal to maternal care, nor to force machete carrying men and boys to choose between safety and virility.
Nor were there grumbles of complaint.
Everybody knew Jorge had reason enough to turn back--refuse the bridge.
Jorge's command relieved them of cowardice and gave them hope of getting to market.
Thus, there on the mud-hill of a road, they became witnesses who would tell me the story and tell it again and again--to themselves and everyone after.
Empty but for Jorge, the Magnolia slides down the approach.
To those left in the darkness above, the Magnolia becomes a sound, a mild roar, a black rectangle, that moves before the head-lighted eeriness beyond.
When brake lights blink on, off, on, but do not slow, disembarked passengers see that Jorge cannot stop to shift grears and take careful aim at the bridge.
They do see headlights bend left as they should.
Jorge, the Magnolia, its wheels have found the elevated tracks.
Found them,
followed them,
and then,
slowly,
as if carefully,
as if Jorge has control,
the 5:00AM Magnolia sideslips right.
Akwardly dropping from tracks onto deck, it slides onto plank-ends that break then fall under the weight of the Magnolia's upstream wheels.
Downstream wheels then catch enough to flip the Magnolia topside down,
nose down,
suspended on incline,
bank to bank,
inches into rushing but receding water which conspires with gravity to rip away market-bound cargo and carry it into downstream darkness.
Then, a feint silhouette.
It appears to appear scrambling up the Magnolia's underbelly, only to disappear down into shadows of the near bank.
Unhurt,
carrying a smile,
Jorge trudges uphill into the small, dumbstruck crowd--now slowly descending.
As I arrive,
bridge sits beside the Magnolia, twisted and broken, precariously adequate for foot traffic.
Here the 5:00AM Magnolia will lie until tonight's rain and tonight's flood attempt to float it under the bridge and take it away to estuary.
Soon arrives the bus I had planned to take to market today--the 6:00AM Ramirez.
Its load of awestruck passengers must hear the story, as must those who show up on foot.
We first arrivals convert from listeners into storytellers.
We tell the detailed story of what happened,
stories of what might have happened,
and speculations on what is yet to be.
Heard and retold so many times that today I am certain that on that morning I saw it all.
We know well the sign above Jorge's seat:
"¡Dios me guía; Yo manejo!"--"God guides; I drive!"
Should we thank a god for our safety?
Should we condemn a god for cargo lost to the river?
Should we thank heaven or Jorge (who stands among us) for getting everybody off the bus?
Should we condemn Jorge for his attempt to cross?
Lives and limbs were saved, but the river has robbed twenty-five poor families of some of their means for living.
To a man, to a woman, we thank heaven and gods and Jorge.
Now,
from outside, across the river, shining wet blue, red and cream in a burst of sunlight, we see the 9:00AM Magnolia.
It comes empty--no passengers--but we marvel to see that it carries a steel cable to this remote corner of Guatemala that has no telephones, no telegraph, nor radio communication by which accident could be reported and cable requested.
With more than enough in manpower, strength and determination, we tether the topside down Magnolia to a tree.
Tomorrow morning we will find the Magnolia floating downstream of the bridge; the taut cable will foil the water´s attempt to launch the bus seaward.
This morning, however, life must go on; decisions must be made.
A few now-cargoless passengers from the 5:00AM Magnolia and a few cargo-laden passengers from the 6:00AM Ramirez cross the damaged bridge, transfer to the 9:00AM Magnolia which takes them to market.
Thus begins the shuttle that will continue long enough to become a fact of life.
The Ramirez, stuck on our side of the bridge, will deliver us to Creek-gully El Español.
From there, the healthy Magnolia will take us to town and market.
In a month--rescued and resuscitated--the 5:00AM Magnolia will return to join its sister--shuttling us from the far bank to the world outside.
This system will last the year it takes to gather resources to rebuild the bridge--exactly as built before.
This morning, however, life must go on; decisions must be made.
Most decide that this is a bad day for us to leave.
We trudge uphill under warming sun, in thickening quagmire, then board the Ramirez for home.
Notes on the 5:00AM Magnolia
Rainy Season, Guatemala, 1968
A Morning in Year Seven of the Fifty Years of Peace Corps
A Morning in Year Seven of the Fifty Years of Peace Corps
Bob Komives
Clouds part.
Sunrise glows through.
I glimpse black-wetness,
reflections on black tires turned skyward.
Yes, dammit, yes, black tires turned skyward above rain-washed blue, red and cream.
This is the 5:00AM Magnolia,
outward bound, now top-side-down, suspended nose to tail, across Creek-gully El Español.
I see broken boards rain-washed clean but for mudded tracks--telltales of where the Magnolia slipped, how it slipped, how it flipped to where it lies wheel-side up.
With me, I bring neither skill nor tool, only camera and conversation.
- - -
Through millennial expanse of sub-tropical forest El Español has risen from dry to flood on whim after whim, season after season.
These years, though, it rises faster and higher.
The sponge is gone.
Each hard rain mines more soil from the once-forest floor.
Each flood scours more land above, deposits more silt below as El Español sculpts its gully with rises and rushes, slowings and spreadings through coastal plain to estuary and sea.
People came with determination to stay:
They cleared trees, built shelters that became houses.
They planted corn, planted cotton, extracted a harvest, carried it across El Español to market.
One year, when El Español was near dry, they built a bridge; poured a concrete buttress at each bank; placed two steel beams (separate by an axles length) from buttress to buttress--spanning the bottom trough of gully. They placed planking across the beams parallel to water's flow.
Above and at right angle to these planks (above and parallel with each beam ) they laid two narrow tracks--two planks each--targets for wheels.
There would be no curb--no guard rail to cast doubt on a driver's accuracy.
- - -
- - -
Even on a good day this bridge was a test of skill.
On bad days it tested with deep-muck or deep-dust, and weather blindness.
Tractor and truck, wagon and trailer, motorcycle, bicycle, hoof and foot arrived above,
bent right,
descended
through talcum-powder-dust of dry season,
descended
through slippery clay of wet season,
until that point where each vehicle must bend left (quickly left) for straight approach onto the bridge.
- - -
Each day, the 5:00AM Magnolia carries the earliest passengers and cargo thirty kilometers to market where it waits for midday return.
Each day, the driver is Jorge--skilled, occasionally reckless, always decisive.
- - -
This rainy morning, in black pre-dawn, from remote overnight station where he had kept dry in a hemp hammock under thatched roof, Jorge struggled his Magnolia through kilometers of muck.
Above El Español he ordered his passengers off, ordered his assistant off, then disappeared with his bus.
But for occasional brake lights that diminished as they descended, and headlights that illuminated the far bank, Jorge and his bus were no more than dark, phantom rectangle.
- - -
It is Jorge's common courtesy during rainy season to stop, offer passengers the option to walk down, across, and up the other side.
On a not-so-bad day, few would accept his offer.
Yesterday, a third of the bus emptied.
This morning, Jorge gave no option: "Everybody out!"
This was not the morning to make narrow appeal to maternal care, nor to force machete carrying men and boys to choose between safety and virility.
Nor were there grumbles of complaint.
Everybody knew Jorge had reason enough to turn back--refuse the bridge.
Jorge's command relieved them of cowardice and gave them hope of getting to market.
Thus, there on the mud-hill of a road, they became witnesses who would tell me the story and tell it again and again--to themselves and everyone after.
- - -
Empty but for Jorge, the Magnolia slides down the approach.
To those left in the darkness above, the Magnolia becomes a sound, a mild roar, a black rectangle, that moves before the head-lighted eeriness beyond.
When brake lights blink on, off, on, but do not slow, disembarked passengers see that Jorge cannot stop to shift grears and take careful aim at the bridge.
They do see headlights bend left as they should.
Jorge, the Magnolia, its wheels have found the elevated tracks.
Found them,
followed them,
and then,
slowly,
as if carefully,
as if Jorge has control,
the 5:00AM Magnolia sideslips right.
Akwardly dropping from tracks onto deck, it slides onto plank-ends that break then fall under the weight of the Magnolia's upstream wheels.
Downstream wheels then catch enough to flip the Magnolia topside down,
nose down,
suspended on incline,
bank to bank,
inches into rushing but receding water which conspires with gravity to rip away market-bound cargo and carry it into downstream darkness.
Then, a feint silhouette.
It appears to appear scrambling up the Magnolia's underbelly, only to disappear down into shadows of the near bank.
Unhurt,
carrying a smile,
Jorge trudges uphill into the small, dumbstruck crowd--now slowly descending.
- - -
As I arrive,
bridge sits beside the Magnolia, twisted and broken, precariously adequate for foot traffic.
Here the 5:00AM Magnolia will lie until tonight's rain and tonight's flood attempt to float it under the bridge and take it away to estuary.
Soon arrives the bus I had planned to take to market today--the 6:00AM Ramirez.
Its load of awestruck passengers must hear the story, as must those who show up on foot.
We first arrivals convert from listeners into storytellers.
We tell the detailed story of what happened,
stories of what might have happened,
and speculations on what is yet to be.
Heard and retold so many times that today I am certain that on that morning I saw it all.
We know well the sign above Jorge's seat:
"¡Dios me guía; Yo manejo!"--"God guides; I drive!"
Should we thank a god for our safety?
Should we condemn a god for cargo lost to the river?
Should we thank heaven or Jorge (who stands among us) for getting everybody off the bus?
Should we condemn Jorge for his attempt to cross?
Lives and limbs were saved, but the river has robbed twenty-five poor families of some of their means for living.
To a man, to a woman, we thank heaven and gods and Jorge.
- - -
- - -
from outside, across the river, shining wet blue, red and cream in a burst of sunlight, we see the 9:00AM Magnolia.
It comes empty--no passengers--but we marvel to see that it carries a steel cable to this remote corner of Guatemala that has no telephones, no telegraph, nor radio communication by which accident could be reported and cable requested.
With more than enough in manpower, strength and determination, we tether the topside down Magnolia to a tree.
Tomorrow morning we will find the Magnolia floating downstream of the bridge; the taut cable will foil the water´s attempt to launch the bus seaward.
- - -
A few now-cargoless passengers from the 5:00AM Magnolia and a few cargo-laden passengers from the 6:00AM Ramirez cross the damaged bridge, transfer to the 9:00AM Magnolia which takes them to market.
Thus begins the shuttle that will continue long enough to become a fact of life.
The Ramirez, stuck on our side of the bridge, will deliver us to Creek-gully El Español.
From there, the healthy Magnolia will take us to town and market.
In a month--rescued and resuscitated--the 5:00AM Magnolia will return to join its sister--shuttling us from the far bank to the world outside.
This system will last the year it takes to gather resources to rebuild the bridge--exactly as built before.
- - -
This morning, however, life must go on; decisions must be made.
Most decide that this is a bad day for us to leave.
We trudge uphill under warming sun, in thickening quagmire, then board the Ramirez for home.
Bob Komives :: Fort Collins :: shareverse 2011 :: Notes on the 5:00AM Magnolia :: 1106
3 comments:
This is so well-written, Bob, and begs for tears and memories of 40 some years ago. Beautiful rendition of "a moment in time" that reminds the reader of the stamina of the Guatemalan people. Touching. Beautiful. Poetically reminiscent of life amid the trials of the day. Thanks.
Wonderful snapshot of the moment so long ago, you are a fine storyteller! I wonder what kind of bridge they have now.
We last visited in 1986. By then they had an all concrete bridge, higher above the water, and in straighter alignment with the road approaches from both sides. It seems to be still there, if I read the Google Earth image correctly.
Post a Comment
your thoughts?