Rain, Rain Go Away

While I was watching Hurricane Ida, I was also in touch with Ernesto, who was dealing with a major tropical storm in Mazatlán. His boss told him not to come to work because it looked like the storm would be serious. Neto didn’t need to man the guard shack. All of the residents were hunkered down in their houses, waiting out the storm.

The next day, Neto described the destruction throughout his neighborhood. Gutters were clogged and overflowing, flooding the streets. He was awake most of the night, sweeping water out the door. Shutters and doors were banging in the wind, allowing even more water to come inside.

Because Neto spent a lot of time this summer waterproofing his roof, his was one of the few homes that didn’t have water pouring down inside. Now he’s getting phone calls from friends and neighbors, asking him to help them deal with the aftermath of the storm. But it’s too late. Everything is too wet. Paint is peeling off the walls and the ceilings are dripping water, leaking from the roofs.

When Neto told me of the destruction from this tropical storm, I was reminded of my first week in Mazatlán. As we listened to news of Hurricane Katrina, Neto pointed to my roof.

“Your roof is a mess. A serious mess. See this paint bubbling off the walls? That’s proof.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Yes, but not until October 15th.”

“Why October 15th?”

“Because that’s the day the rain stops.”

When I told my new friends about this conversation, they laughed. They said that Neto was making up a date because he didn’t want to work. They said that no one could predict the date of the last rain of the season.

On October 12th, there was a huge thunderstorm in Mazatlan. The flat roof on one wing of my new home leaked black water into every bedroom. Lightning and thunder crashed all around us. Water bubbled up out of the sewer. Tile blew off the roof of the hospital across the street. 

“Why is this water black?” I wanted to know.

“Because the pendejos who lived here before tried to fix the roof with tar paper. That black stuff is tar. That’s why we need to fix the roof.”

On October 15th, Neto arrived at 8:00 a.m. with his crew: Publio and Pepe, the same guys who helped him build the fountain in my courtyard. The weather was hot and steamy. The rainy season was over and they were ready to get to work.

First, Neto set up the ladder, of sorts. It consisted of a scaffold with a long board attached diagonally on one side. Small sections of 2×4’s  were hammered onto the board, to create crude steps up the slope.

The men ran up and down the board, as agile as cats. The wood bounced with every step they took. It was terrifying to watch.

Then he asked if he could use my big beach umbrella, the one that looked like a giant watermelon. He took it to the top of the roof, along with a bucket a sand Next he asked if he could borrow my CD player. He plopped the umbrella in the bucket of sand, so the guys could work under the shade of the umbrella, turned the music up loud, and they got to work.  

For a week the guys were on their knees, scraping old disgusting, wet tarpaper off the roof, using metal spatulas. I’m sure it was toxic. They didn’t wear masks. 

They scraped without taking a break. They piled the rubble into buckets, attached to a pulley system and lowered the trash to the ground. Full buckets were emptied into the bed of a borrowed short-bed truck and returned to the top of the roof. 

At the end of the day, Neto drove the truck to dump the trash, and came back to collect everyone’s wages. As the boss of the job, Neto paid everyone $20/day and they gladly tipped $2.00 back to him, to show him they were grateful to have a job.

Pretty soon two more guys showed up: Francisco and Vera Cruz. They heard there was work going on at my house.

“Do you need two more men?” they asked Neto.

“Only if you do what I tell you. It’s hard work, but you get paid every day. The boss gives us lunch.”

That’s right. I provided lunch for my workers every day. As a special reward for showing up on Mondays, I took orders and bought tortas from Tortas Kuwait, the sandwich shop down the street. The rest of the week I cooked. I bought a Mexican cookbook and worked my way through the pages. Tortilla soup, flautas, tacos, quesadillas, rice and beans, Kraft macaroni and cheese with marlin, whatever I could dream up. The only worker who was fussy was my housekeeper,  Christina, who told me early on that people in Mazatlan never eat black beans. “That’s for the poor people from the South.”

Most days work continued until 6:00. After a week, all the old tarpaper was gone and the original concrete roof was shiny and clean. The next week the guys carefully applied a mixture of white cement and sealer to the roof and let the sun bake it in.

Voila!! Problem solved. Five men. Countless buckets of debris. A watermelon umbrella in a bucket of sand. And music turned up loud. I had arrived in Mexico.