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When the Waters Rise
How far will you go to help someone else?
Pedro lucked out when the water rose. His apartment wasn’t flooded. He used to curse the climb at the end of his workday, but now he was grateful.
His job was gone, though. The restaurant lay under God only knew how many meters of murk. The River Douro had backed up all along the Ribeira, drowning the tourist zone.
The Portuguese were coping pretty well considering. Deprived of tourism, the river cruise ships served as floating hotels to host the homeless. Portuguese fishing boats became water taxis when they weren’t out finding food. And countless families were migrating from the coast to inland villages that had been deserted for decades. Wildfires scorched much of the country’s interior but at least it was dry and not overwhelmed with mosquitos.
Clean water was a challenge since the municipal pumps weren’t working. Pedro heard about the desalinization plant they were building but that wouldn’t be ready for weeks or months, depending on the weather. This hurricane season had already gone through half the names list.
Pedro’s elderly neighbor depended on the water he fetched for her. To get it, he biked a twice-weekly pilgrimage to a natural spring in a city park. But she had run out of charcoal and wood for the outdoor grill where she…
