La Lluvia en Bogotá
Adriana Uribe
This week we learned in school how rain happens. I’ve also realized I will never be safe. No one is safe. Floods and landslides are happening everywhere in Colombia right now. Pundits continue talking about people from one political party or another, rich people, powerful people, famous people, even the army – all of them attempting to stop the tragedies that rain is creating. But what people do makes no sense. They keep donating money or doing things that have nothing to do with stopping the rain. Grownups are stupid because even though they know why rain happens, they don’t change the way they do things.
I watch the seven o’clock news with Abuela everyday and the same story is repeated in different parts of the country. Yesterday, the images on the TV screen seemed to be the same as the day before: Villages wiped out by rivers flooding after storms and heavy rains. They showed more people standing on rooftops with dogs and cows awaiting rescuers to come on boats and helicopters. There were people rowing canoes in what should have been streets and a reporter said that many of the main roads were blocked because of landslides. Even the mountains are being washed away.
Every day the talking heads chatter about the state of alarm growing in Bogotá and in the country. The shops and markets in this city depend on produce arriving in trucks now stuck somewhere in the mountains or already underwater.
I explained to Dora why she needed to stop ironing. She didn’t complete primary school so she probably didn’t know.
“When water evaporates, the steam goes up to the sky and then it forms clouds. When the clouds become too heavy, they start turning into rain.”
The steam coming from the hot iron will make the rain worse. It hissed every time she slid it on the ironing table. Transparent clouds rose to the ceiling before becoming invisible. I cannot see it, but I guess the steam will leave the room through the windows to reach the sky.
“I have to finish nena. Your abuela will be upset if Don Hugo doesn’t have his clothes ready to go to work.” Dora is scared of my dad and every time she makes a mistake or doesn’t finish a chore, she thinks my abuela will fire her.
My dad’s rage is almost as scary as the news about storms and flooding rivers. Perhaps even more worrying because he would shout and say mean things to everyone in the house. He always apologizes afterwards. I guess his rage is more apparent, and Dora feels embarrassed in front of my dad. My abuela told me that men sometimes behave like that, and I shouldn’t pay much attention, but both she and Dora behave differently when my dad is around. They look nervous, like when abuela invites over important people for lunch; like her boss or those ladies who are not her close friends but pretend to be.
Abuela taught me to fear the rain more than my dad’s anger. According to her, the rain in Bogotá could not only destroy everything, it could also make you very sick. You could get a cough, develop bronchitis, catch a pneumonia and eventually die. She makes sure I wear two t-shirts under my school uniform every day, and Dora has to carry an umbrella every afternoon when she collects me from school. It doesn’t matter if the sky is blue and the sun is shining because Bogotá suffers from unpredictable rain. Everyone could get soaking wet in a matter of minutes if they don’t open an umbrella. Today the rain falls like a really big shower, but the water from the rain is not the same as taking a shower or going into a swimming pool. I think the rain is dangerous because it falls on you straight from the sky.
I wished the iron Dora is using would break or that she would stop ironing right now. Then the rain might stop. Gazing out the dining-room windows, the downpour looks mighty powerful. People running in the street cover their heads with their jackets, newspapers or shopping bags, scrambling for shelter. They aren’t sensible people like Abuela: They don’t have umbrellas. From up here, the sensible ones look like dancing spider webs, mostly black but sometimes decorated with flowers or company logos.
The rain is getting even fiercer and a foggy curtain of millions of raindrops makes the colors outside look blurred. Only the brake lights from the cars stuck in traffic look brighter. It feels good to be inside my apartment. My home. I just wished I wasn’t on my own with Dora. She is like all the other maids in the past. For one reason or another, Abuela gets fed up with them and then finds someone else to do the chores and look after me in the afternoons. My real family – the people living with me – they’re always working. Abuela, Abuelo and Dad leave in the morning before I go to school. Mum used to be at home all day but since she left, she works in an office just like abuela. I only see her on weekends. Abuela and mum may be looking at the same rain from their office buildings right now.
The traffic in Bogotá gets worse with the rain, and Abuela may not arrive on time before Dora leaves at six o’clock. I might have to stay on my own. Bogotá is a big city and there are lots of cars, buses, motorcycles and trucks that break down when it rains.
What if the rain doesn’t stop and starts growing into massive rivers like the ones on television? Our building is only two storeys high and even though we are on the top floor, the news yesterday showed rivers covering houses and buildings.
I don’t mind the noise of the sky when it rumbles, but I know that if the thunder gets louder, Dora will have to disconnect all electrical appliances. The power may go off. I really hope that it doesn’t happen because I like my routine after school: I do my homework, eat my snack and wait until 4:00 pm to switch on the TV and watch Plaza Sesamo. Please God, stop the rain. I want to watch Sesame Street.
The raindrops crash against the windows. They hit it with thumping noises and then slide down, leaving a thin trail of water quickly replaced by more drops. Each drop is like a little soldier defeated in its effort to come inside my home. Maybe one drop on its own is not powerful enough, but millions of them could conquer the window, filtering through its edges and knocking out the glass. I’ve seen on TV how hurricanes can blow over houses and uproot trees. A hurricane looks like a rainstorm mixed with a powerful wind blast, but they haven’t taught us about natural disasters in school.
Puddles have grown at the edges of the road outside, joining up and becoming small rivers. The water seems like it’s almost levelled up with the sidewalk. People wouldn’t be able to walk among the cars stuck in traffic now. They would get their shoes and socks wet. Two cars broke down right in front of the entrance to our building. Their parking lights are on and the lower part of their tires seems covered by water. Their drivers won’t leave the cars in the middle of the rain because they would get soaking wet and probably get a pneumonia and end up in the hospital.
Abuelo repeats all the time that Bogotá is built to the edges of every mountain surrounding it and that roads have never been big enough for the growing traffic. When he’s speaking with anyone about the history of Bogotá, he says that there were a lot of lakes and rivers where there are barrios now. When it began to expand, the government built on top of the Sabana de Bogota, which Abuelo said it was a beautiful, green valley. When he was young, Bogotá was only what we call “El Centro” although it’s not in the middle of the city anymore. The surrounding barrios didn’t exist. Instead, Abuelo used to spend his school holidays in these areas where there were lots of streams and nature. He used to go fishing and flying kites with his friends, but now we don’t even feel the wind because it’s stopped by tall buildings.
When we take the bus to go to El Centro with Abuela, I only see gray buildings and everything feels dangerous. One must be careful crossing the roads. We normally cross the roads running. In general, grownups say that there is no point on trusting traffic lights. The streets are also full of potholes and manhole covers go missing all the time. The pavement is cracked everywhere and sometimes it could be dangerous to step on the cracks, in case the slabs give way and one ends up on the dirty ground or breaks an ankle. It happened to Doña Mariela, the neighbor downstairs.
Both my Dad and Abuela have told me that being alone in the streets of Bogotá is very dangerous. I don’t understand why everyone in my family spends so much time away from home, but if they can go out at any time of day or night and nothing happens, then I’m not sure they’re telling the truth about dangers in the city. Abuela says that it is different for women and girls because we are weaker and cannot defend ourselves. There are a lot of homeless people in el centro and they would try to rob us and could take us away.
No one in my family has told me what I should do if I ever got lost after being left alone in the apartment if the family didn’t come back home at the end of the day. I think it is also dangerous to be so alone. What should I do if I end up being taken away by an over flooded river? I know my home phone number by heart. Just in case rescuers need it to locate my family.
The rain is loud but it’s also like a kind of silence. Maybe that’s why many people like taking a siesta when it rains. I don’t sleep during the day because I’m not a baby. Also, if I take a siesta, I wake up feeling as if I had two short days instead of a long one.
But now I feel hypnotized by the sound of the rain. It is like a wall of sound that blocks any other sound. I can barely hear Dora’s radio program or the hissing iron. The rain is taking over my world or perhaps it is taking over the world in general.
I come out of my trance, going to the window to monitor the street down below. There are no people or umbrellas around anymore. I’m getting used to the constant tapping at the glass. I go to the living room to check the time. It’s just 3:35. I discover a new noise inside the flat. Four humid bubbles of wall paint have formed on the ceiling. At the center of each bubble, a single thick drop of water grows before falling with a splash on the rug, the coffee table, the sofa, and the freshly polished and waxed wooden floor. The drops grow slowly. Then, the muted splashes follow at their own pace. Some drops seem to fall faster and louder than others.
I run back to the dining room and tell Dora about the leaks. She gets pots from the kitchen and places them underneath the ceiling bubbles. She takes away the sofa cushions, the books on the coffee table and looks up and down to make sure that the drops won’t fall right in the middle of the pots. She goes back to the kitchen and returns with a tea towel to wipe dry the wet surfaces.
Abuela would get mad if she knew that Dora is using one of the good tea towels for water drops on the wooden floor.
The noise inside the flat is now louder and with a little echo, as if the water drops are furious about being contained inside small pots.
I keep thinking of the ceiling bursting open and water flooding inside and destroying everything we have. It could wash us away with the furniture, toys and everything else. We could end up floating in a brown river of mud and debris. Miss Belén said in class that all rivers end in the ocean and if this rain becomes a giant river and takes me away, I won’t see my family again. The ocean is far from Bogotá; I know that because when Dad took me to Cartagena, the flight took at least two whole hours.
I am not afraid of rivers or water, though. I’m not even afraid of the sea. Abuelo taught me to swim during holidays and I practice when we go to the club. The rules there say that children have to be accompanied by an adult at all times, but I can float and swim well enough to be on my own. When we went to Cartagena and I was in the sea for the first time, Dad insisted that I jump above the waves, but I preferred to go under holding my breath and closing my eyes. I should be able to swim if a flood takes me away today.
The phone rings and I answer immediately. I was expecting Dad’s call because he phones every afternoon at the same time. I want him to come and rescue me before it’s too late. I don’t want to be on my own in case there’s a flood.
“La casa se está inundando como en las noticias!”[1]
I could barely contain my tears and hoped he would understand that this was an emergency. I remembered the flash news and the photos in the edition of El Tiempo that Abuelo brings back from work; the frozen images I’ve seen on the news are more powerful because a photo stays forever and it doesn’t change. Entire buildings collapsed under the power of mud rivers and our street could be the same. Grownups don’t take the rain seriously. Every time it rains around here, we see the streets turning into rivers. Now the rain is getting inside people’s homes. My home.
Dad insists I shouldn’t worry. He asks me the same questions he repeats every afternoon: How was school? Had I finished my homework? Eaten my snack? As if nothing else was happening, he tries to distract me or maybe he’s just distracted as he always is when he talks to me. He tells me that the rain should stop soon and everything will be fine. He couldn’t hear the heavy raindrops falling from the living room ceiling. I could hear the people in his office talking, the noise of the electric typewriters and the phones ringing.
“Don’t worry, sweetie, maybe the gutter is blocked. We’ll get someone to fix it over the weekend.” He is always trying to calm me because he doesn’t like it when I cry. He must have noticed that I was scared, but not enough to make him come for me. He always promises to fix things during the weekend and then he doesn’t do anything. Maybe we won’t make it to the weekend.
I have never seen my dad worried or sad, not even when Mum left. That time, she packed her bags, kissed me goodbye and told me she would call during the week. Dad stood by the door and then told me not to worry, that everything would continue as normal. Life was going to be the same whether Mum was there or not.
It’s true that things are more or less the same because I am still in the same school and Dora and Abuela are around like Mum used to be. Weekends have changed, though. Now Mum picks me up on Saturday mornings and I stay with her until Sunday evening. She didn’t like it when I told her that after my dad picks me up on Sundays, he doesn’t stay at home with me, he leaves me with Abuela and goes out again. I don’t want Mum to be upset so I don’t talk about it anymore. Even though Abuela is always at home on Sunday evenings, it feels a bit like when I’m with Dora. Something is missing. Abuelo and dad don’t spend much time at home, not even on weekends.
I discover this sad feeling inside me after I hang up. No one will come to rescue me, no one needs me around. Dad didn’t care, grownups are always busy with other things. It’s always upsetting when I feel that no one cares about important things and it’s worse when I feel they don’t care about me.
Once I asked Dad what would happen if he had to work in another country or another city.
“You would stay here with your abuelos and visit me during the school holidays.”
I don’t want to stay in Bogotá without my dad. Besides, Mum is still in Bogotá but my abuelos probably wouldn’t let me go to live with her. They don’t like her and maybe wouldn’t even let me see her on weekends.
Whenever I return from school with Dora, I feel relieved to be back at home, but I also get a sad feeling in my chest, like the one I have right now. Sometimes I even feel like crying. If I cry, I don’t let Dora see me. It’s embarrassing, but I can’t help it. I still cry sometimes when Dad is angry or if Mum doesn’t answer the phone when I call her. Sadness normally disappears when I switch on the TV to watch Plaza Sesamo and then the programs that follow. I know by heart the shows from Monday to Friday from 4:00 to 9:00. I even know what’s after 9:00 pm when I have to go to bed: abuela changes to Canal 7 and watches Los Ricos También Lloran. It’s a boring novela about a very poor woman who is lost in a new city. She doesn’t know that she’s the lost daughter of a very rich man and she has a lot of enemies who make her life impossible. The television is always loud because both Abuelo and Abuela are a bit deaf. That’s why I can hear the story of that novela from my bedroom. It’s just like the radionovelas that Dora listens to when she’s doing chores.
The pots in the living room are filling up. I know that because the noise has changed from an empty thump to a quieter splash. Dora replaces the containers with empty ones and throws the water in the kitchen sink. They fill up quickly, almost like a water faucet that hasn’t been closed tight. I can’t sit on the sofa because Dora removed the cushions and put a plastic bag under the small bucket to collect the drops. God please make the rain stop.
I go back to the dining room window to check the street again. The color of the sky has turned into a lighter grey and the raindrops crashing against the window are not as fat and heavy as before. The street is deserted. I don’t know what happened to the traffic jam. The cars that broke down earlier are gone. There isn’t a single soul in sight. Rain keeps falling without interruption to feed the street rivers. It’s as if it wanted everyone to hide from its might. The living room leaks are now louder than the rain outside. They are out of synch. This chaos of drops reminds me of our music class and the boys who kept beating the drums until the teacher told them off.
Dora continues ironing after emptying the living room pots again. She’s not worried like me because she’s a grownup and doesn’t see this danger. She’s surrounded by tidy piles of newly ironed school tops, towels, bed sheets, and even men’s underwear. She hangs shirts and trousers using the door handles and the back of the dining room chairs. Now the dining room looks like an odd shop; she could be the manager behind the foldable ironing table.
A bright flash from outside is followed by loud thunder. It’s so loud that we both shriek and the windows seem to shake. Next, the familiar car alarms go off in the neighborhood. Car alarms here go off every time a heavy truck drives by. I think of the cars parked in the street as sleeping babies suddenly awakened by a loud noise that makes them cry.
Dora switches off her radio. “Nena, ¿tienes frio?” she asks when I sit on a chair in the dining room. Adults associate the rain and the gray clouds with feeling cold. Maybe I was shaking, not because I was cold or because of the loud thunder, but because I am now thinking how alone I am. My home might collapse after another loud clap of thunder.
I don’t bother answering Dora, just nod my head. I am never cold. I still have two t-shirts under my school uniform. I look up through the window. I feel like crying but Dora won’t see my tears.
“I think the rain will stop soon,” she said, disconnecting the cord to the iron and wrapping it around the handle. She might be right. After all, she has finally stopped ironing. I wish Dora was part of my family so she was here to protect me and not just to work and be paid. She looks red and sweaty after her ironing workout.
Dora sits down on the only dining room chair free of freshly ironed clothes. We are both looking at the window in silence. I can’t help wondering if the ceiling in this room will begin to leak too.
[1] The house is flooding, just like in the news.