Which town?

4

It is on a wide plateau of red clay, denuded and eroded by the winds and the goats, about 50 meters above the ocean, that She has finally, in February 1968, given the decisive impulsion to Her city.

Another 50 years later, a number of wells have dried up.

When we first arrived, there were still some open wells, down the plateau towards the interior lands, where a rope, a bucket, a pulley and simple cheer could do the work. At present, a little like in any big city anywhere, we depend almost entirely on the public systems of generation and distribution of electricity to draw the water from the three aquifers that we have accessed to the surface – the top aquifer being the one that is fed by the seasonal rains, the one below carrying waters from further away, little exploited in the past, but vulnerable to saline intrusion and the third and deeper one being slightly sulfurous. Even though this electricity is “free”, since we exchange for it the one we produce with our wind towers located further South (there is not enough wind in the area), this condition of dependency is fettering as it not only restraints but also alters and affects, by its effects and consequences, the liberty to collectively explore and progress: for, without energetic independence, we are effectively bound to the general economy. Thus the next step is to create a station of photovoltaic panels of sufficient capacity to provide for all the needs. However it is to the ecological general situation that we are increasingly tied for, even though our efforts at regeneration have borne spectacular results along the years, the rapid proliferation of the harmful practices attending the wild development that has seized upon the region with its

17

Made with FlippingBook flipbook maker