The year of the fish-bearing whirlpool was not the last remarkable year. Many others followed in which strange and wonderful things happened. There was, for instance, the year of the drought, when the heavens were shut for months and the spring from which the entire village got its drinking water slowed to a trickle. The spring was about a mile from the village, in a ravine that opened at one end into a small, flat clearing covered with fine gray dust and hard, marble-sized goat droppings. In the year of the drought, that little clearing was always packed full of noisy kids with big brown eyes and sticky hands, and their mothers—sinewy, overworked young women with cracked, brown heels. The children ran around playing tag or hide-and-seek while the women talked, shooed flies, and awaited their turns to fill up their jars with drinking water to bring home to their napping men and wet babies. There were days when we had to wait from sunup until late afternoon just to fill a small clay jar with precious, cool water.
刮风下鱼的年头还不是最后一个令人难忘的年头。后来几年又有许多奇怪而又精彩的事情发生。比如，旱灾那年，老天连续几个月没有下雨，整个村庄赖以生存的泉眼变成了涓涓细流。泉眼位于离村庄大约一英里的山沟里，沟的一头是一小块平地，上面布满尘土和坚硬的弹子大小的羊粪蛋。干旱那年，这小块平地上总是挤满了打闹的孩子和他们的母亲，孩子们都长着褐色的大眼睛，小手黏糊糊的，母亲们都还年轻，她们身体结实，因为过分劳累，脚后跟被晒得又黑又裂。孩子们跑来跑去，玩着老鹰捉小鸡或捉迷藏的游戏，而女人们则闲聊着，“嘘嘘”地驱赶苍蝇，排队等着轮到自己用水罐装满饮水，然后带回家给打着瞌睡的丈夫和尿湿了的婴儿。有时候，我们从日出一直等到日落，才能盛上一小罐珍贵、清凉的泉水。