Jack and Jill Went Up the Hill to Fetch a Tinaja de Agua

Monday, December 31, 2007:

WX: 7:30, 65 degrees, partly cloudy, no wind. There seems to be a pattern…

Jack and Jill Went Up the Hill to fetch a pail of water…
Jennifer and Beto took a walk down to the creek to get some water. We use what is locally called a tinaja. It looks like one of those ancient water jars you see in greek paintings. That particular shape actually serves several purposes. For one thing, water does not slosh around in it when it is completely full. Secondly, it is easy to pour water from it even when it is full. It is also mechanically strong shape to hold a liquid. The ones we use here are made of plastic, but otherwise look identical to the clay versions of yore.


While I was still wiping sleep from my eyes, Jennifer and Beto took two tinajas (a baby one for him and a 3 gallon size for Jennifer) to get water from the creek for cooking and washing. Walking down to the creek is relatively easy, as it is only a couple hundred meters away and downhill about seventy feet or so. The harder part is coming back up, with full tinajas of water. Jennifer has nearly perfected the skill of carrying a full tinaja on top of her head – balanced with the help of two hands. Beto is getting the hang of things as well.



Jack fell down…
There are some fairly steep and slippery parts of the path that lead back up to the house from the creek. Beto has not mastered the complete art of climbing steep, dusty and slippery hills while carrying an eight pound water jar yet. At the steepest part of the trail, he hesitated and then balked – whining and squealing like a stuck piglet for mama to come and pick him up! This distracted Jennifer, who was ahead of him (and above him on the trail). She set her tinaja down and headed downhill to help Beto. After a few steps, the big round jar with three gallons of water in it, not being a particularly stable shape, tipped over and began to roll**. Downhill is the direction everything rolls here, including thirty pound jars of water. Beto, being on the trail directly below Jennifer, happened to be in the path of the sloshing, spilling, rolling green-and-white-striped projectile. Jennifer clearly and loudly instructed Beto to “get out of the way”, but, alas, he did not respond with sufficient alacrity. He was momentarily preoccupied with what he must have thought was hopeless hill climbing chore carrying an unbearable load – by the time he looked up to see why his mother was shouting, it was too late to avoid being flattened by the speeding and now muddy tinaja. His whining and complaining about his previous predicament ceased immediately. Jennifer was truly afraid that he had been injured as the tinaja apparently had time to reach substantial speed before its progress was interrupted by my stalwart son. Even though he is only three-years-old, he weighs in at over forty pounds. Of course, that isn’t much when you consider that the tinaja might have still had twenty or so pounds of water in it when it hit him. You never have a video camera when you really need one! I would have paid good money to have seen the action in person.

Jennifer send Beto up to the house ahead of her. She shouted to me from outside indicating that she would like a little assistance if I was not too busy. Beto was a wet, muddy mess. I rinsed him off and stripped his muddy cloths and sat him on a bench to wait for his mother who was now recovering, and re-filling and retrieving the tinaja.

Breakfast: Somebody stopped by with a pound of sow-belly. Jennifer had a really hard time cutting it and started to get a bit testy after I suggested using a sharper knife. I guess having to make two trips for a jar of water is irritating.

I made toast and the kids and I ate toast and juice for breakfast while the pork fried – mmmm!

Later, Jennifer and Beto and I went back down the hill to fetch some more water.

** Most accidents happen close to home