ENTRY 20- BLACK RAIN

Language 4. Entry Nª 20


BLACK RAIN ON MY TOWN

It is said that things look different, or as they really are when you take certain distance to appreciate the situation. It is true, I always get angry during the sugar cane harvest, because of the black ashes that fall like rain, and I have to clean the floors more or I got so stressed when one of that ashes gets into my eyes.
One day I had the chance to look at Banda del Rio Salí from the distance. My husband and I were taking some photos just to test the new camera, and he stopped the motorcycle at the top of the highway. Everything looked very small; the cars, the bridge, the houses. My husband took a picture of the bridge. I wanted to see the sugar cane factory chimney. I had to follow the dark grey smoke from the clouds to the bottom and it got confused with all the houses. At that moment I took notice that after a strong, long sound coming from the factory, a black rain began to fall over the town. The town looked so dirty, covered by that black curtain. I was lost in my thoughts about the ashes, my husband continued taking photos, when we heard the noise of a terrible burning. As preceding a storm, we heard a terrible explosion like a thunder, after that the noise of green leaves exploding into the air. Then big pieces of burnt sugar cane leaves were launched into the space crushing with the black ashes, they reached a certain height and they began to fall graciously, waving and landing on the roof of the houses, on the streets, on people’ s head without even apologising.
So leaving the poetic ironic terms, the black rain is composed of two elements, the black short dashes coming from the factory chimney and the black burnt pieces of sugar cane leaves, they are as big as ten centimetres.
The owners of the plantations find it easier, quicker and cheaper to set fire on the plantation instead of having men taking the leaves off from the plant. The owners only think on their own economic situation. They are not able to consider if they burn the electricity cables crossing over the plantations. The whole town is sometimes without electricity. What is worst, many hospitals are affected. They do not think that electricity could save a people’s life at an operation.
Not the owners of plantations nor the sugar cane factories take into consideration our environment. It’ s very expensive for them to install filters in order to reduce pollution. They use the sugar cane remains after they have taken the juice, to burn fire in order to make machines work. When the black ashes are free in the atmosphere, they look like menacing dashes, which could hit your eyes and hurt them causing problems in your vision. It is not enough for them, they also go into your nose and affect your respiratory system as well. Not to mention that your clothes and hair get dirtier than ever.
I really hate the time the months that the sugar cane harvesting takes place, on one hand because of the ashes, the black rain and on the other hand because the big trucks carrying the sugar cane because every season they cause accidents. I am not able to sleep without being afraid of them. I live half a block from the road where the trucks go all night and day. It is terrible when in my dreams I fell some kind of earthquake is moving my bed. I can hear the terrible noise of metal crushing at high speed, that I get crazy because I think it is the end of the world or a terrible earthquake. When I realize that it is an empty lorry coming at high speed, I get more calm.