Praying for Rain

In Boston, weather affects the quality of your day. But a spell of bad weather one month is unlikely to affect your entire year. That's the difference between city-dwellers and farmers. For us city dwellers weather affects our outfits. For farmers, weather affects everything.

In September, everyone planted their fields with corn. The corn stalks have since sprouted and grown. In some places they are taller than I am. They're still green, for now. I say for now because it hasn't rained in a long time. People are starting to worry. Herman Rosario says that all the corn in Juliaca (a few hours away) is dry and yellow and useless. People will lose a lot of money if it doesn't rain soon.

A 4th grader lights a candle for a 4 year old.

When there's nothing else to do, people of faith pray. Andeans are big on walking and praying. So for 3 evening last week we went out and prayed for rain. From what I understood, the tradition comes from the Incas, and it's vital that the children be the ones shouting their prayer.

They are crying out, in Quechua, "Lord have mercy. Send us your rain and your water."

After an hour of walking, we ended back at the parish.

Bolivia is also experiencing a massive drought. This is climate change, happening right here in front of me. Pray that we get some rain. Then go and and implement these 10 Actions You Can Take Today To Reduce Your Carbon Footprint. It won't guarantee rain for Andahuaylillas this year, but there's a whole lot of future ahead of us and this is probably only the beginning of the slow motion massive disaster that we're bringing upon ourselves.