Photo Essay
by Rani Birchfield and Pamela R. Gumina
ain in the Chihuahuan Desert is a capricious
thing. Dwellers of the Borderlands want it, need
it, crave it; for their garden, for their livestock, to
replenish their wells and their sanity lost from the unre-
lenting sun. But the Rain Gods have become undepend-
able and unfair, to say the least.
It seemed as if there wasn’t really a “monsoon” season
this year, those fairly steady afternoon rains that start
around July 4th and last for a couple weeks and contin-
ue sporadically for the few months after. Instead we had
a super hot summer, one that those desert appliances –
swamp coolers – couldn’t combat. Eighty-seven degrees
inside! And nights? No “cool nights in Big Bend” this
year. When little rains did come, they were patchy and
mercurial, microbursts instead of broad and soaking.
They flooded streets in town and filled up drainage
creeks, while a mile or two away where the rain curtain
stopped, things stayed withered and thirsty. One house
R
16
Cenizo
Fourth Quarter 2019
gets a mist; one house gets flooded; and the next house
gets none.
Sometimes when – if – rain came, it was just a tease,
a “six-inch” rain as some say – six inches between drops
that last only half a minute. Barely enough to dirty up
your vehicle. Other times, it’s one inch in six minutes, a
torrential, patchy phenomenon which floods the streets,
causing the drainage creeks to test their bounds, and
making it difficult for the parched ground to drink it in.
Years like this make one appreciate water more than
the average Joe and Jane city-dweller (although their
time is surely coming), makes one want to learn rain
dances and beg Rain Gods of Old Mexican folklore for
sustenance from the sky. I, for one, will continue to try
Latino remedies, like "cutting clouds" with kitchen
knives if they roll in, and perhaps even erecting a statue
of the virgin Mary in my yard next to the watering
trough for the thirsty wildlife.