April 3, 2013
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Road Water
As I walked up to the church, Jaciara was washing her clothes in a wheel barrel. She looked at me sheepishly before I could ask why. “The water has been out.”
In Northeast Brazil, smaller cities are used to not having water. Many are set up on a one day on, couple days off system. Anyone who can afford it has a huge plastic water reserve, perched on top of their home like a chimney.
For Jaciara to have to bring all her clothes to the church to wash meant the water had been out for at least two weeks.
With the World Cup in 2014, Brazil is stepping up to look good. A new stadium was built 45 minutes from my apartment, and everyone is in a frenzy to keep up. The “highway” that connects all our smaller cities with Recife is being doubled (which means TWO lanes going each direction, instead of one). This might not sound like much, but it has been almost 20 years in the making, and has made me swallow more dust than you can imagine.
Brazil takes a long time to get things done, but once they finally do, they do it well. They have been bulldozing and building and digging for the past couple years, with overpasses and bypasses and roundabouts where previously had only been semi-paved roads with potholes the size of meteors. And the Brazilian people have been rerouted and waiting in stop-and-go traffic daily—this is the one road that connects them to the bigger cities.
Most Brazilians have the patience of Job when they see progress being made. But not me. I grumble and complain about the dust and mud and extra walk since the road suddenly moved or is closed. I complain about the higher prices now that more people are moving into town, and the pollution the extra vehicles are making. Never in America, I tell myself, would they wait this long or pay this much for progress.
To double this road, they had to take out part of the water system in Guadalajara. So they gave money to the local government to build another pump to supply water to that area. This money, just like the pump, was never seen or heard of again. Jaciara lives in this area of Guadalajara.
Before dawn the people in Guadalajara, fed up by now, gathered a bunch of old tires and made a barricade. They stood around it in strike. No water, they said, no road.
I sat on the bus on my way to Living Stones this morning. “I’d like a ticket to Cajueiro Claro.” I told the ticket man. “No. We can only take you to Paudalho.” I thought he was joking. No, he said, the road is closed. I called Pastor Flavio, and told the ticket man to explain the problem, as I was in disbelief. Flavio told me to go home, I couldn’t get through.
Brazil confuses me. They go so long with nothing, or being exploited, and then explode in all the wrong places. It isn’t the fault of the people using the road that they don’t have water. They need to take their tires and strike to the local government that lined their pockets with the money for the pump. Instead, they wash their clothes in wheel barrels. Instead, the road is closed down, the people rerouted or sent home, and everyone just comments, “Eh, it’s Brazil.”
