The last year and a half in the countryside has been the opposite of the peaceful idea of living among trees, with the song of birds fluttering between your ears and the fresh breeze caressing the mountain.
Lately, the Earth has been expressing itself with fury through the intensification of certain flows that have become uncontrollable. Something very difficult to ignore.
Sometimes the planetary superorganism deploys a powerful wind, capable of turning over a multitude of mohos (Cordia alliodora) with a single breath. Giants between 15 and 20 meters high, they fall as if they were skinny toothpicks half stuck in the ground.
That was the case of what happened on the farm of Don António Torres' mother's neighbor. The latter brought us the news, accompanied by images on his cell phone;whose veracity I took the trouble to personally corroborate, days later.
Don Antonio is a person whom my family and I appreciate, despite his unusual ability to cut down trees. For what it combines in an unusual way (I avoid using the word “artistic” because it is what it is about) machete, ropes, chainsaw and winch.
Such would be the visual impact of finding a group of fallen trees, stacked one on top of the other, as if it were a game of chopsticks, that a man like Don Antonio, with years of walking around lopping off cauchos, vainillos, quiebrajachos and who knows how many more, he ended up horrified.
At other times, it's not violent air currents but a liquid flow: rainfall expected over one or two months is pours down in one or two hours.Then the ravines roared and overflowed bravely, taking everything with them.
In our area, the overflows destroyed several bridges, and the local aqueduct. They also demolished houses and entire plots of land due to landslides, caused by heavy rains on eroded and deforested soil.
After a brief respite, like a beast ready to press the neck of its prey, the extreme summer launches itself upon us.
The fluffy clouds moved away, the ravines dried up and the drought hit with full force. Although the effect of drought is not quick-acting, like that of wind, rain or thunder, its lethality is the same.
The prolonged lack of water, added to the high temperatures, amounts to mass death in slow motion.A kind of strangulation that weakens us until we faint.
Progressively, over the weeks and then months, what was once a landscape of vibrant shades of green turns into a palette of brown tones.
Although the surroundings remain beautiful, it's easy to see that many plants are dying from lack of hydration. Patches of burnt yellow appear on a quilt of increasingly terracotta.
At the same time, animal suffering becomes evident. In areas with scorched grass, the livestock lose weight, while other animals pant for breath under any shade where they can take cover.
No longer do we hear the tumult of birds painted in blue, red, yellow, and all the other colors, on the cluster of bananas hanging in the shed. I wonder with regret if the birds managed to escape somewhere else before dying of thirst.
And so, we go from one extreme to another, shifting from extreme winter to extreme summer and back to the beginning.
Beyond the rural area
It's not that we have a bad streak, it's that the climate of the world in which we live is not the same as that of our grandparents, our parents, not even ours, five years ago.
Very similar situations are repeating themselves in various places across the globe. However, even though some news stories garner more attention from the media due to their higher degree of sensationalism, many go unnoticed, much like ours.
I invite you to review some press headlines that have appeared in the media during the last (not year, not semester) two months:
21/08/2023, El País: Two dead and more than 33,000 people isolated due to a new rain storm that affects central-southern Chile
16/09/2023, BBC News Mundo: Libya floods: 'All that's left is rubble and dirt and destruction'
21/09/2023, Mongabay: Floods and droughts: the disasters that have caused the most damage in Latin America
29/09/23, Mundiario: New York declares a state of emergency due to “life-threatening” torrential rains
30/09/2023 France 24: Drought disrupts the lives of the inhabitants of Manaus, in the Amazon
Obviously, natural disasters have existed since the beginning of time.The difference with the situation we have now is its high recurrence and simultaneity throughout the planet.It’s the fact that this is our “new normal.”
The world is not what it used to be.Still, it seems that we have not realized the true magnitude of the problem we have under our noses.It is not in the top ten of our immediate concerns, nor does it figure in our conversations.
To give an example, yesterday I participated in a social gathering in which we talked (as is usual when you meet with people you don't see very often) about all the problems that unite us despite the distance.
We rant for hours about the situation in the country (health, insecurity, political proselytism with public resources, drug trafficking, peace talks, etc., etc.), new parenting models, military servicefor our children, among others.
The issue of climate change never came up, despite the infernal heat we have had to endure in recent weeks.
We are not prepared for what is coming
Precisely at the point of maximum tension, when some no longer have water to even brush their teeth, the spirits of the community in which we have lived for just over four years begin to heat up.
Suddenly, rumors arise that blame one and the other for the shortage of the fundamental liquid: "that it is bad administration", "that it is water smuggling", "that it is corruption", "that it is waste...", people said.
Then, the community breaks down even more, collapsing in the midst of scarcity.
Competition for few resources with other neighboring communities begins to give way to dirty game. Which doesn't just happen on a small scale.
Something similar has been happening between Iran and Afghanistan over the latter's rights over the Helmand River. Iraqis accuse their neighbors of damming water upstream. The Afghans deny it. There have already been deaths at the border.
Read also: Africa, the Middle East and Asia are at risk of conflicts over water due to climate change
Returning to our path, the wealthiest simply fly like swallows to their homes in the big city or any other place of rest. Without knowing that it is only a matter of time before the effects of the superorganism's disruptions radiate to the entire social, political and economic system.
The rest (which is the majority), with no way out, remain scraping the rocks, while they dissociate in the midst of bitterness and sadness.
The water reservoir, a project initiated in 2019 by the CAR (a regional institution of the Colombian state), which could have alleviated this and previous hardships, thanks to a storage capacity of nearly 10 million liters of water, failed to become operational after years and years of failed attempts.
We recently went up with a group of friends to visit the project. We took some photos and made videos.
Up on the mountain, full of invisible leaks, that large pool without water was abandoned, a kind of lifeboat full of holes, which will only serve as a reminder of the incompetence of the states to free us from the abyss of climate change.
For his part, the president of the local aqueduct, unable to make it rain and harassed by the avalanche of complaints from angry people, requested in writing, as a matter of urgency, a tank car with water from the municipal mayor's office.
The liquid arrived on the eve of the mayor and council elections.One of the candidates brought it in an old and tired truck, which almost failed to make it up the last stretch of mountain due to the weight it was carrying.It was necessary to leave some of the liquid on the road to alleviate the load.
In the meantime, the tubs (200 liters) and jacuzzis (500 liters) at the glamping sites in the area are being filled and emptied as couples in a rush to escape the city for a romantic night amid the water, while contemplating the landscape, make bookings.
The owners of these money-making machines fight to keep them running, despite the circumstances.
Although less glamorous, the pigsties, poultry farms, fish farms, and monocultures in the area are also in dire straits. They are striving to draw as much water as possible to save their production, but they will have to compete for it with other local stakeholders.
Many crops have been lost, and numerous animals have fallen ill and died.
The amount of food available to supply the city is no longer the same, it is decreasing.Even so, some of those who live on the asphalt continue with their lives as if nothing was happening, ignoring the thin thread on which their livelihood hangs.
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