There are women who live in a small pueblo off a slice of
highway just outside of Ocotal, Nicaragua. They awake with the sun and the roosters. Durable five-gallon buckets are filled
at a hand cranked well and carried away, one after another, on the swiveled
t-shirt-topped heads of the women who awake with the sun and the roosters in a
pueblo just outside of Ocotal, Nicaragua.
Sabana Grande woman carrying morning water
Passing one of these women along a barb-wired dirt road
warrants a soft smile and an “ey hombre,” but not if the five-gallon bucket,
filled to the brim with hand-cranked well water is on her head. Not then. She is focused.
You understand.
Her husband may be tending to herds, milling wood or at
harvest; so also may her sons and daughters. Or they may be at school harvesting literacy and other
fruits of knowledge. Seeds for
replanting.
Sabana Grande man carrying crops from the field
She takes in and feeds and cares for the needs of foreign -
American foreign - chicos and chicas and permits they witness that steadfast
commitment to her way of life and her way of community. Her expectations are not warped nor out
of proportion to her lifestyle, so long as she and her place and her people
remain healthy, who she works hard for and who works hard for her.
Emptied.
Replenished. She cranks the
well and the water comes out.
Tomas Newman
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