29

How could it be that only one year ago my life was so different? I rose before dawn and put on jeans and boots. I stuffed a water bottle, my pager, and the altimeter lent to me by one of the NGO facilitators into my day pack.

Cocks crowed as I made my way up the darkened center of Cara Sucia. Niña Tere made me coffee as she did each morning. Nora and I sat sipping together at the table. She was wearing her starched school uniform. I had on my filthy work clothes.

Niña Tere prepared plastic bags full of food for both of us. The first northbound bus of the day rumbled uphill, audible for miles at that hour. A few dogs howled as it came. Rambo rose and wagged his tail. Nora kissed her mother, said good-bye to me, and went off to school.

Niña Tere poured me another cup of sugary coffee and brought out a couple of rolls stuffed with refried beans. We sat eating.

“Going to be hot today,” Niña Tere said.

“Yes.” From outside, I heard a few men milling about at our meeting spot along the road. “I should get going.”

Niña Tere nodded.

Out on the street, I put on a more serious face.

“Don Mauricio.” I reached out my hand.

“Ingeniera.” He smiled and shook it. Mauricio was a young member of the village council, and he’d taken the lead with organization. On a computer at the Peace Corps office, I’d made a spreadsheet of names and dates for him. Each morning he checked off the workers as they earned the right to their household water.

The men themselves were a mix of older patriarchs, wearing collared shirts and straw hats, and teenagers in T-shirts and baseball caps. Young Felix was there every day, yawning and complaining about the early hour, his grandmother’s screams still sounding from their little house.

Once the sun had risen higher, we started on our long commute, Mauricio and I in the lead. Many of the men carried picks and shovels over their backs. Others carried only the iron implements and a machete, hoping to hew wooden handles from tree branches once the tools were needed.

Though much of the village complained about the long walk to reach the spring, I’d come to enjoy it. These hours of the morning were the most pleasant in El Salvador: the air still cool from the previous night, no diesel exhaust yet belched out by the buses, a low-angle sun casting dramatic shadows off all the trees and houses. Even the village drunks had found their beds and not yet started on another bender.

We stopped for a rest and a snack at the bodega. The owner of the house brought out our Stillson wrenches from his bedroom.

Mauricio finally spoke. “Okay, boys, let’s get to work.”

Chago and Chente, two strong teenagers, were the first to load up. They laid pieces of grain sacks over their shoulders, then lifted each end of one six-meter-long galvanized pipe.

I put one of the Stillson wrenches over my own shoulder, which was about all I could bear. Early on, I’d fantasized about helping to carry one of the big pipes, but watching the men struggle along the steep sides of the river valley had cured me of that.

We set off down the narrow trails, grabbing at the thin stalks of coffee trees as we went. At last, we reached the pipeline’s stopping point. I asked Felix to help hold the Stillson while I clamped it onto the pipe fitting. He blushed a little as I leaned across him to tighten the wrench.

Chago and Chente groaned under the burden, which seemed to grow heavier the second they stopped walking. Several other men rushed over to shoulder it for them.

I crouched along the existing pipe as if it were the barrel of a gun. The men raised the rear of the new pipe to align the threads.

“Up in the back,” I called. “To the river. Good. Toward me a little more. All right, now!”

They held the pipe still while Mauricio turned the big wrench. Once the threads caught for a rotation or two, we attached the other wrench to the new pipe and set about screwing it in. I liked this part. Felix often hung his whole bodyweight from one end of the wrench, feet kicking in midair, giggling and hooting. Sometimes two or three guys hung on at a time.

Once that pipe was tightened, we moved on to the next pipe. And so it went: Our aqueduct advanced in six-meter baby steps. By lunchtime, we’d laid three pipes, which meant it was a productive day. We took our break by the banks of the river, alongside a tall waterfall. Mauricio made a quick fire and we all toasted our day-old tortillas in the coals. Chago and Chente stripped down to their underwear and went for a swim. They climbed to the top of a high rock by the falls and traded flips into the deep pool. It might’ve been a scene from an old Hawaiian postcard.

A swim sounded nice, but I knew better. Already, it was a semiscandal that I spent my days working in the woods with all these men. If the gossip mill heard that I bathed with them as well, I’d become a walking confirmation of everything Salvadoran women suspected of American girls.

Instead, I ate my lunch, crunching through the blistered outer layers of the retoasted tortillas. As I returned the trash and dishes to my backpack, I saw that Ben had sent me a page: “SWELL COMING IN. HERE NOW. SEE YOU TOMORROW.”

I’d almost forgotten it was Friday. I put the pager away and signaled to Mauricio that we should get back to work.

He stood, whistled, and gestured to the boys.

I smiled as we walked back to the aqueduct. I had good waves nearby, meaningful work, and a wonderful boyfriend. Now, I’d do anything to get back that version of normal. It’s laughable that I ever thought of that part as hard.