Prompt: What are some of the earliest events in your life that you remember?

Rosario:

One of my first memories was of a flood when I was four years old. We lived in Abasolo, Guanajuato, Mexico. It had been raining many days. At 4:00 or 5:00 in the afternoon, a nearby dam broke and the water came into town. We were all in the bedroom.

My Mom was behind the bed holding baby Virginia, and I and my other younger sister Irma were in the bed. My Mom was standing up and the water was as high as her hip. The [wardrobe] closet fell down in front of the bedroom door and we couldn’t get out. The bed was floating. There was no electricity. The storm was really angry, with a lot of lightning and thunder. We had chickens, pigs, and a dog, and they all were crying.

My father and grandfather were in town buying and selling animals, pigs and chickens. At around 7:00 or 8:00 p.m. my father and grandfather came to get us, and took us to grandfather’s house, which was higher.

The house was ruined. We stayed a few days with my grandfather, and then we moved to Irapuato, another suburb of Guanajuato.

When I was ten years old, there was another flood, this time in Irapuato! We were home on vacation from school. It was on August 18, 1973. Another dam broke; this one was much bigger than the one in in Abasolo. Before the water arrived, I could see the dust cloud in front of it!

Inside the house, the water was higher than the doorway, and we all climbed to the roof. All the neighbors were on their roofs, too. The teachers who lived nearby in a three-story house, taller than the rest, told everyone to come to their house because it was higher. I remember my father holding each of us and handing us over to the people on the next roof, until we all got to the teachers’ house.

I remember seeing an 18-year old boy in the street when the water came. My father and another man stretched a rope across the street. The boy grabbed the rope and traveled hand-over-hand on the rope until he could hang on to the window frame across the street. The man grabbed him and lifted him to the roof.

I also remember seeing the owner of the grocery store on the corner, and she was crying. All the goods from the store were floating away down the street. I also saw a dead person float by and lots of animals.

We were on the teachers’ roof for four or five days. Our house was muddy but did not fall down or wash away. We were able to clean it up with a lot of work and continue living there.
 
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