Chapter Two
That night, Clarity woke up around three in the morning, awakened by the shouts of Kish.
"There's a flood, the village is full of water."
Clarity donned some clothes and got out of her tent, pointing her flashlight at the water around her. Miradorcito was flooded, and Clarity’s trekking shoes were soon drenched with mud. Kish carried little credibility in the village, although everyone liked what he made with his loom, traditional shawls, colorful blankets, blouses, table runners and purses. He was one of the few if not the only inhabitant of Miradorcito with an entrepreneurial instinct, but no one listened to him or believed him when he said that he could bring prosperity to the village. This time, the craftsman had not exaggerated. Clarity clashed against Ms. Morales, who was wearing knee-high fishing boots and the three of them met on a trail filled with mud.
"What happened, what were you doing near the dam?"
"A mosquito got inside my hut, and I went after it all the way up the river to the Rosarito dam. It's broken, there's a huge hole in it."
Among her friends, only Flower, who slept lightly, had awakened. The rest of the women were sleeping soundly. Ms. Morales pointed her flashlight at Flower and at a large head emerging behind her, the head of Zephairi. Clarity followed them, and they all followed Ms. Morales and Kish to the source of the disaster area. After an hour of walking around the flooded area, they made their way to the dam, a large cement structure one hundred feet wide. The main role of the dam was to store water, but there were plans to add a hydroelectric facility that would provide electricity to the village. Miradorcito relied on small, thousand watt power generators made by Honda or Kohler, filled with less than a gallon of gas, and Ms. Morales wanted more modern equipment for the village. The head of the village pointed her flashlight at a large hole thirty feet in diameter that let water from the river flow through it.
"This wasn't done by nature, the crater is round, perfectly round."
"Someone used explosives," said Zephairi, "only explosives would leave this type of damage to cement." His voice trailed off. They were standing on a hill overlooking the river and the embankment dam, and the soil beneath Zephairi was giving way, moving him away slowly from the rest of the group. The Egyptian archaeologist grabbed the branch of a fallen tree and pulled himself out of the unstable clay area, as the others watched only, for fear of being drawn into the muddy area near the river as well.
"Are you all right?" asked Ms. Morales.
"I wouldn't be had I not found this branch." Flower hushed to Clarity.
"My patron is resourceful," said Flower, looking proudly at Zephairi, as he struggled to lift himself near the large branch he had found, encouraged by Kish. Kish meant well but he was thin and his lack of strength prevented him from doing chores, which he considered menial, and so he often replaced doing them by encouraging others to do what he couldn't do.
"Can you help me?" asked Zephairi, calmly but firmly.
"No," said Kish, with equal intensity, "you're doing fine."
Zephairi breathed out a sound similar to a tapir, and extracted himself back on firm ground after several minutes of effort witnessed by Kish. Clarity took some photographs of the damage, and they returned to the village. All the farming land of Miradorcito was flooded. Ms. Morales walked through the mud in the village to the farming area behind her home, whose thatched roof was made with palm trees, plant stalks and foliage. She picked up a shovel and opened the door to her garden. The garden acted as farming area, where she grew tomatoes, lettuce, peppers, jicama, carrots, achiote, beets, and pepita de calabaza. All of this was sold at the market near the tourist areas of Tulum and Xelha, and that was a large part of the livelihood of the village. Ms. Morales had created a local cooperative, run by and for their members, and taught others to grow their own vegetables. As a result of that idea, the members of the village decided to elect her the head of Miradorcito. The farming area was damaged considerably, and the vegetables were buried under a pile of mud. Zephairi appeared behind her.
"Well, the village is finished, we can begin the excavations now a lot more easily."
Ms. Morales lifted her shovel and threw a glare of disbelief and retained anger at Zephairi.
"What did you say?"
"I said the excavations can begin now here in Miradorcito, there's nothing much you can grow with all this water." Ms. Morales shook her head.
"We have to talk." She pointed Zephairi to her palapa home, and the Egyptologist followed her finger, stepping forward towards the entrance.
"She only says that when she gets angry," said Kish. Clarity could sense that Kish was worried. He grabbed the arm of Clarity, pleading for some reassuring support from the Malibu teleoperator.
"I see, I'm not sure what she meant or what the topic of the talk will be." She paused. "Can you let go of my arm?"
"Your arm is important to my sense of reassurance," said Kish.
"My arm is not that strong, certainly not as strong as your need for reassurance," said Clarity.
"My reassurance won't hurt your arm."
"My arm is not your reassurance."
She shook her arm loose from Kish's grip during a moment of distraction of the craftsman. Kish was in his mid thirties and he disliked precarious situations. He was used to working alone and had been taught from an early age to persevere in whatever endeavor he was pursuing on his own. But his own industriousness and sense of pride turned against him when events became overwhelming, because nobody could solve absolutely every single big problem on his or her own. He wasn't used to reaching out to other people for help or assistance, and he wasn't comfortable doing it when he had to do it. He stood still before Clarity, unsure of what to do next.
"Let's walk inside to hear Ms. Morales home to hear what they say." Kish nodded, opening and closing the fingers of his hand, which were cramping slightly. Ms. Morales stood at the entrance of her palapa, writing on a piece of paper the equivalent of a guest list.
"What are you doing?" asked Zephairi.
"Keeping track of those coming into my home, this is an official village talk, I want to take the minutes of this talk, and I want these people to be witnesses. She pointed to Flower, Clarity, Kish and Lanai, who had slipped into the palapa.
"What's happening?" asked Lanai.
"The village is flooded, looks like someone placed explosives on the dam, and the dam is damaged."
Ms. Morales cleared the dining table and brought some chairs. Zephairi sat down and began his talk by claiming property of the village on behalf of the Egyptian government, drawing a square with a few small branches. Miradorcito was part of a recent, obscure bilateral agreement between Mexico and Egypt and one of the results was that Zephairi had been authorized by the governor of Campeche to explore Miradorcito, checking for the presence of Mayan ruins and artifacts underneath.
"I've told you before, there are no ruins below Miradorcito," said Ms. Morales, "nobody here has seen any ruins."
"There may be a whole Mayan city underneath your feet, you may be standing on very valuable archaeological findings," said Zephairi.
"If so, the artifacts belong to Miradorcito, not to the Egyptian government."
"The Egyptian government is being very generous, it is bringing all of its archaeological knowledge to this area in Mexico. In return, we'd like to benefit from any findings." Clarity watched Flower writing the minutes of the talk. She liked to act as secretary when the information given out in a meeting was important, or relevant to her ethnographic purpose, understanding various cultures and why they behaved in certain ways and not other ways, more similar to her own ways of behaving.
"Are you the representative of that Egyptian knowledge?" asked Flower, turning to the Egyptologist.
"Yes." He took out a small piece of paper, similar to the one Flower had given Clarity, the permiso de arqueología, and placed it inside the improvised square made with twigs.
"Oh good, I made the right choice in followin
g you then," said Flower.
"You can sell Miradorcito to me and use the money to settle somewhere else," said Zephairi, turning to Ms. Morales.
Based on previously done geological studies, Zephairi kept thinking that the pyramids possibly standing beneath the earth of Miradorcito would bear some similarities with Egyptian pyramids. Similarities, which had remained unobserved for hundreds of years. Archaeological synergies were bound to be found, and an Egyptian discovery could be claimed for Egypt. Zephairi wanted the glory of that discovery and he genuinely thought that he held an archaeological gold mine with Miradorcito.
"I'm not selling this land, my family owned this land before me, this is my home." Flower raised her hand.
"Do you mean to say you're almost part of the environment?"
Clarity saw Ms. Morales ignore Flower, who had another question. She turned to Zephairi.
"Would you be personally buying the land or is it the Egyptian government who would buy it, were Ms. Morales to accept this transaction?"
"The Alabastriah foundation, my sponsor, would buy the land of Miradorcito, on behalf of the country of Egypt."
Clarity's Hawaiian friend, Lanai, objected to Ms. Morales reasoning, arguing that it might be interesting to look for Mayan ruins, because they were part of the tradition of Miradorcito and of the culture that Ms. Morales was defending. Ms. Morales was intrigued by Lanai's statement, but she shook her head.
"No, we want to stay here just as we are, there's nothing underneath Miradorcito."