Esperanza Street

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The rain came down. On Esperanza Street the hot-food vendors, already prepared with tarpaulins, called to one another in mock dismay as the rain hissed on their braziers and broke the crowds. A layer of steam rose from the ground and clung to the leaves of the cheesewood hedge that separated Aunt Mary’s boarding house from the commotion of the street.

I stood at the boarding-house gate and watched as the rain emptied Esperanza Street. Generally, our people didn’t run too hard to escape the monsoon rains; only the tourists, for whom such rains were a novelty, sprinted happily for cover. The rest of us knew that at the height of the season, over the course of a day, the chances of staying completely dry were slim, even with an umbrella. Later on, when the rains grew less frequent, people might work a little harder to avoid getting wet.

At the top of Esperanza, where it joined Salinas Boulevard, the fish vendors stopped pouring cups of water over lines of crab and milkfish and groupers and rolled back their canopies, if they had them, to let the rain wet their wares.

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