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Diniz thought his family had enough to worry about. His mother was dying from her illness and they were having a difficult time paying the medical bills for it, much less keeping food on their table as well as rent money coming in every week.
In spite of this he wanted very badly to take part in Diniz’s big adventure down at Las Vegas, but knew that even if things could somehow be arranged, which would have been quite impossible without Mama there with them – she simply couldn’t stand up long enough or walk far enough to travel that distance-they shouldn’t attempt such an endeavor because they didn’t know how to do what needed to be done while traveling across so many miles; nor did they understand American ways: they didn’t speak English nearly good enough.
And also, Diniz doubted he could persuade Pedro – not to mention Tomaso; so whereupon, quite obviously, no one else was going either.
It wasn’t fair! Why should other people go? All these problems lay between him and his exciting trip to America, why shouldn’t someone help him out? He certainly wouldn’t refuse if anyone offered some assistance…
Catarina herself believed she needed to stay home to assist both Mother and Father – though Diniz wished she’d stop calling himself that since now everyone called her Mama, too – with taking care of the farm chores until father got back from working out west somewhere, maybe New Mexico, to earn more income toward curing Mama.
What Catarina considered helping all went on at once, in the middle of everything: cooking meals over a primitive cook stove; tending chickens (or rather chicks in various stages); harvesting vegetables from the garden; making fresh tortillas out in front, when the heat permitted; packing clean laundry onto canvas lines stretched out under grape arbors outside the house; trying to get children and old men fed before hunger set in.
If those chores weren’t accomplished then life pretty quickly became a series of stomachaches among all concerned, including some animals who might otherwise have had something better to eat than whatever scraps there happened to be left lying around by the end of any day, especially if one included catfish – fish only appeared later, after the crop was harvested, so to keep meat from spoiling in case there would soon be none to feed upon; or possibly if there turned out to actually be nothing edible besides stale corn meal and some water inside.
The older girls usually tried to prepare most days’ suppers anyway just because their parents thought they ought to do whatever little they could to help themselves and each other stay alive … sooner than later.
One Saturday morning during fall harvest season, right past noon, as usual Catarina woke to see people moving through the fields behind the house: not farmers like the ones who’d planted, watered, and picked all of those crops Catarina labored hard to tend successfully: these folk wore business clothes as if headed off on a busier sort of job than being a farmer ever seemed likely to hold.
Her family lived within sight of several farms, yet not one of the landowner families kept tractors or other mechanical implements and tools around to maintain and repair equipment whenever needed, a fact of course widely known throughout all sorts of places within dozens – or even hundreds — of townships surrounding La Cruz de Querétaro area, so much so that almost everyone knew about it and consequently took such occurrences into account when making their own plans regarding living in those parts, including whether there really was enough room to build another house nearby and live near relatives, neighbors, or friends, some already here with plenty of lands ready to till and cultivate; although perhaps not very good soils, so yields might turn out small-scale anyway if and when harvests came in late – or never.
However, these landowners – high up on the social ladder, no doubt – maintained crews to handle upkeep issues whenever it crossed their minds to make changes or improvements at the beginning of the spring planting season, and would send people to inspect the works afterward, allowing people whose plots adjoined theirs to watch them in action, in addition to consulting and occasionally contracting specialists for specialized jobs nobody around was able to handle by reason of their lack of experience. So everybody paid attention.
Which meant everybody in town always understood that whenever trucks arrived filled with seed and fertilizer or finished products intended to be hauled away again the following year, along with boxes full of supplies like ropes, nails, cable, chains, brackets, lumber, tools, boards, cement blocks and sacks, asphalt, and other items required to construct things like barns, sheds, fences, irrigation channels, ditches and dams, buildings and structures used for storing foodstuffs like corn and beans, livestock facilities like pens and stalls, manure pits and feeding stations, granaries, and other special purpose houses like grain mills and canneries…
A dozen or two individuals moved quietly through the field behind the house in order to obtain picturesque views of work underway, oblivious to how noisy kids often were if given even partial freedom to run loose, without adult supervision.
Everybody watched for several minutes on the chance some wealthy city-dweller would look their way with his telephoto lens pointed right into the scene from a passing car, van, or pickup truck window, when a team of oxen showed up followed by workers aboard wheelbarrows loaded with sod and straw arranged in carefully placed rows leading downslope towards an empty lot between existing farms were previously covered dirt had been dug up recently in preparation for its re-use in new construction efforts.
Even a casual observer could tell the latest in agricultural science had long ago gone beyond what any ordinary person would imagine possible. And a large crowd gathered eventually to learn more detail concerning exactly what this major project entailed, although at present anybody wandering through the vicinity looking into progress there didn’t appear inclined to lend assistance nor engage in conversation anywhere nearby.
Or on his journey back home once he did manage to pull himself together sufficiently to stop staring straight ahead blankly at everything happening and start thinking of returning to somewhere else entirely instead.
Everyone took the arrival of strangers quite seriously since if you were relatively poor and therefore hardly worth bothering to notice unless your circumstances had suddenly improved dramatically – in other words, someone deserving extra praise and respect, as well as total admiration — then any sudden increase in wealth represented news worthy of much comment amongst other locals lucky enough to know of the fortunate fellow’s existence beforehand and sometimes standing in place waiting upon him until finally convinced by whatever he happened to say they should go on about their business rather than simply hang around watching and wondering why he couldn’t use their help (assuming, of course, their services weren’t readily available elsewhere and unavailable close-by).
Thus it didn’t take very many folks to generate excitement sufficient for the appearance of curious outsiders intent on checking it out personally to merit widespread interest, especially among persons involved directly in cultivating food in one capacity or another while others just watched and wondered what on earth they hoped to achieve in the next generation before anyone noticed if anything changed in a significant manner as far as how people around here went about producing meals.
Eventually, word spread via the grapevine that no matter which direction you looked in the countryside near the little farming hamlet of Villa Purificación, the rich soil characteristic of a region blessed with perfect natural resources for growing plenty of corn, beans, and squash helped some households become established originally on three sides of homes owned by more prosperous families located eastward within view or just outside village boundaries facing inward toward the west, so children in those families received fewer chances to wander off with curiosity demanding exploration.
But still, plenty of free-roaming youngsters got wind of something extraordinary going on virtually everywhere around the community where somebody might stand inside sight but not actually witness operations occurring in yet another field set aside for later consideration. After everyone caught up on everything necessary already done or made ready.
Or at least concluded everything needed to be said thus far and opted instead to watch everybody who wasn’t doing anything stare straight forward expressionless except for occasional blinking now and then. The way so few ever lost patience because no one spoke or otherwise commented for most of five solid days following the first announcement of unusual occurrences taking place in more distant locations.
Too distant to get to easily in order to determine whether or not the entire idea was likely a terrible mistake being secretly planned to trick unwitting persons into supporting a completely ill-conceived scheme better suited to someone born in a different century based on all kinds of strange rules peculiar to agrarian societies still unproven regarding how crops are raised in modern-day conditions and weather patterns untested throughout history compared with previous centuries never experienced here in North America up till last year anyway.
Nobody knew why farmers constantly speculated the best time to plant crops in spring each year even though nobody dared risk committing such a criminal offense or expense without full knowledge of what would come of attempting to grow all manner of vegetable foods out in the open under the continuous sky instead of undercover in order to avoid heat stroke caused by excessive temperatures routinely exceeding one hundred degrees Fahrenheit during peak summer months hereabouts.
But so vast numbers of them flocked from various directions to examine ongoing progress at the site chosen for reclamation nearly seven miles away due south from town and as far north as ten blocks away according to someone who’d visited in advance and viewed the map there showing everything necessary already accomplished over a thirty-acre area located just above the highest ground inside town limits before heading out on foot along an unfamiliar road.
Towards another distant location six blocks further along down a barely distinguishable path leading across empty fields rising higher than two feet or more from the surrounding terrain as tall as fifteen feet seen from this side and considerably more visible in silhouette behind houses located thereon partly hidden beneath rooflines made of wood and palm fronds coated with coconut oil.
And plus sticks were used for keeping vermin-like rats and moles out rather than venturing out where the critters also dwelled to see if their advice proved valuable. But once arriving early morning they found a vast expanse of brown dirt waiting to be dug and turned into deep water holding puddles drained of excess liquid only after the heavy rains of hurricane season ended, allowing enough time afterward for things to dry out again before planting and maintaining good drainage belowground where roots grew deeper seeking access to adequate moisture.
The kind of moist that was suitable for absorbing rainfall through layers of exposed sod needed to be removed carefully and laid out flat and uncovered wherever weeds were allowed to sprout afterward exposing bare dark earth otherwise left untouched for over a week of gradual decomposition including leaving dead leaves alone with an eye toward preventing new vegetation from appearing forcing careful deliberation since thousands of acres had already been planted within every nearby county stretching all the way inland almost fifty miles past the Caribbean Sea coast.
Following the creation of a chain of local villages connected together long ago when early settlers arrived with seeds and basic farming tools looking to build permanent lives in paradise right away working hard building irrigation ditches while gradually overcoming initial adversity against tropical climate making life challenging indeed by later adding more high tech inventions to raise crop productivity using farm implements imported from abroad with improvements too numerous to enumerate requiring specialized skills like improving cultivators through constant trial and error.
The End