The young girl tiptoed along the exposed wild-reed peak of a house. She maintained her balance with arms outstretched as if she were about to fly. She held two clay roof tiles in one hand and a near empty-pail of cement in the other. She was seeking a broom.
Three days earlier May had delivered an unexpected nightlong rainy-season overture to the southern Jalisco mountains. At that time, the early 1960s, older people said the rainy season always arrived on or around San Antonio de Padua day, June 13. Thus a heavy storm so early was then seen to defy the law of nature, perhaps of God. No matter, now the Chema and Guadalupe Rosales family, and many others, were preparing for more early storms. From a wavery home-made ladder I lifted up another stack of 18-inch long tile, took the pail from Concha and handed her a broom to sweep away scampering alacranes, (scorpions), viudas negras (black widows) and wind-sifted dry season debris.
Houses in the campo, the countryside, had roofs of carrizo, wild reed, covered with home-fired clay tile, often with a layer of rainproof tar-paper lamina in between. Among the much extended Rosales family, Concha was the only 16-year-old girl who regularly helped her father and brothers with roofing tasks. She had done that since she climbed a ladder at thirteen, carrying a pair of pliers so old the teeth were smooth. She used the pliers still to lift roof tile without getting hit by alacranes. From the beginning, unlike her brothers and cousins, Concha didn’t get lost in gossip while working. She learned to concentrate on the job given her and on her balance. Besides, Concha said secretly, she liked to beat her older, rough-teasing siblings at getting jobs assigned to her finished quickly. “Be quick, but don’t rush.”