Rain. Water.

It was the perfect storm. The hill on the other side of the valley grew more and more opaque as the rain moved towards Pita. A cement tank I had made to store rain water sat elevated on a wooden table behind my house. A PVC gutter system would soon direct all the rainwater that fell on my zinc roof to fill its thirsty 60 gallon interior. My pants were caked in hardened cement, fingers sticky from PVC glue, my host brothers hands cracked and dry from helping me finish plastering the inside layer of cement a few days before. We sat on the porch, the thunder creating a drum roll that added to the excitement and anticipation. 

Patrick, a PCV friend had helped me create the table for the rainwater catchment system, carrying thick lumber to my house and helping me put it in the ground, and leveling the oddly shaped pieces of wood. Days later, I had carried sand and cement up to Pita on horse back with a friend from the community. On the trip, the horse had slipped on the loose mud, it's square pupils seeming to dilate in fear as I kept the rope in tension that wrapped around its muzzle, so it would not roll back down the hill. The form for the tank had been sewn by a dear grandma who lived up the hill. I had filled the cloth form with sawdust from a recently felled tree, and young men from around the community had helped me apply the ferrocement to the form. The tank had begun to take shape, and the kids would hide in its space, and butterfly's for some odd reason seemed to be attracted to its surface. With a group of four men we had moved the tank to the table, and finally on the morning of the perfect storm I had cut all the PVC, angling the cut so the rainwater would fall into the tank and not into my front yard. It had been a long morning, but the prospect of not having to carry water until the dry season kept my motivation high. 

The storm arrived, and the sound of the rain on the zinc almost drowned out the thunder. The rain fell on the corrugated roof, slid down the angled zinc to the PVC, and then proceeded to slide down the PVC... surprisingly and extremely unfortunately not into the tank but rather into my front yard. I was dumbfounded. I checked the angle of the cut on the PVC, the water should flow towards the tank, but for some odd reason was flowing up-hill and soaking my front yard instead of filling my sweet new tank.  The kids washed their hands in the stream of water that splashed on the mud. They smiled and laughed and showered in the water, and it seemed to be a brilliant success to them. The rain passed and I climbed up to the roof, placed a level on the steel, and confirmed that the roof was angled downhill, away from the tank. A level roof, predictability, and any typical assumptions simply cannot be made in the campo, yet another lesson, and a new gutter system would have to be imagined.