Water and Rocks

When I arrived back in Mexico two nights ago,
as I was leaving the airport in the backseat of a taxi, two events happened.

One was the eruption of Colima Volcano, 50 miles away from my house.

The other was a waterspout that took water from the lake and dumped it on the mountains above my house. That event, added to massive rain on that night and this morning, led to the culverts becoming swift-running streams and the cobblestone streets next to my house being littered by stones brought down the arroyos, which all happen to empty into streets which become part of the drainage system.

After the rain finally ended today and the skies cleared, I decided to venture out to see what condition the world around me was in. I could hear the rushing sound that told me that water was still rushing down from the mountain. 

Although the street that ran to the side of my house was littered with stones, the gardener across the street had gathered up all the stones on the street that ran horizontally across the hill, and put them in small piles, so it was passable. Luckily, no boulders had been brought down this time, for in the past boulders as large as small cars had rolled down, completely tearing up the roads.

At the end of my street, the culvert had turned into a small stream, and as usually happens after a  series of big rains, children and their parents were treating the culverts like spas––wading and sometimes immersing their entire bodies.

At every street corner they could be seen cavorting like seals and having a wonderful time, as were this grandmother, daughter and baby boy at the end of my street.

I couldn’t resist going to talk to them. The baby was just objecting to the cold water when I arrived, and the mother had set him up on a rock and was gathering stones for him to hold.

He hoarded them in each hand.

“Does he know how to throw rocks?” I asked, and when the mother shook her head no, I set about teaching him how.


After an initial reluctance to let go of the rocks,

He was a fast learner!

And soon we had trouble keeping him supplied with enough pebbles.

Meanwhile, the little stream rushed on, tumbling some of the small stones down the hill towards the Raquet club
to round the corner

and rush on down to the village and into the lake.
Those trees out in the lake were once on dry land and the chains of water hyacinths I could make out even at this distance gave testimony to the fact that in addition to the rainfall, extra water was being let out of the spillways of dams further upstream on the Lerma river. I decided it was time to drive down to the lake to take Frida for a walk to investigate further.

To Be Continued

If you are interested in seeing what happens when a tromba (super-saturated cloud or waterspout) empties out over the mountain above me after days of very hard rain, look HERE. You won’t believe this many rocks could  come down in a 15 minute period! It took a year to repair the damage.

Today’s prompt is “breakthrough,” and if these aren”t two examples of types of breakthroughs, I don’t know what is! I guess I anticipated the prompt.