But for one Mexican couple, a hut wedged below a 130-foot boulder in Coahulla, Mexico has been home for the past 30 years. |
Click for more photos of their home
For many people the idea of living under a rock might seem like the punchline of a joke. But for one Mexican couple, a hut wedged below a 130-foot boulder in Coahulla, Mexico has been home for the past 30 years. A reporter recently visited the couple, Benito Hernandez and Santa Martha de la Cruz Villarreal, in their primitive desert home 50 miles south of Texas. Hernandez is a farmer who plants and collects the Candelilla plant used in making Candelilla wax. He first saw this boulder 55 years ago, when he was eight, and decided to make it a home one day. Twenty years later he was able to secure rights to the land. "I started coming here when I was eight-years-old to visit the Candelilla (harvesting) fields and I liked it here. I liked it and then I continued visiting every three to four months. I wasn't married and I didn't have a family yet but I liked it and I had to keep coming to put my foot in (on the property) because lands here are won through claiming them," Hernandez told the International Business Times. The home, made of sun-dried bricks and cement, has a dirt floor, a wood stove, and no plumbing. Electrical service is said to be unreliable. A nearby stream supplies fresh drinking water. In winter, though, the water source freezes over. "It gets very cold here and we struggle to get food. We have to work hard here on the Candelilla (fields). That's the only job we have. That's what we live from," said Hernandez. The couple have seven children, six of whom are married and live nearby. (Agencies)
|
對許多人而言,在巖石底下居住這一想法聽起來像是笑話。不過,對于一對墨西哥夫婦來講,過去三十年,嵌在墨西哥Coahulla州的一塊高達130英尺的巨石下的一個棚屋便是他們的家。 一名記者近期拜訪了貝尼多-赫納德茲與桑塔?瑪莎-德拉克魯茲?維拉里爾這對夫婦,他們的家位于德克薩斯州以南50英里的原始沙漠。赫納德茲是一名農夫,靠種植和收集蠟大戟為生,這種沙漠植物可以用來提取小燭樹蠟。 55年前,赫納德茲第一次見到這塊巨石,那時他才8歲。當時他就下定決心有朝一日在那里安家。20年后,這里終于成為他的家園。 “我在8歲時來到這里,到Candelilla(意為“豐收”)田地參觀時就喜歡上了這里。因為喜歡,每隔三四個月我都會來看看。我那時還沒結婚,也沒自己的家庭,不過我就是喜歡這里,總要到這里走走,因為只要你要求得到這片土地,那它就屬于你了”,赫納德茲在接受《國際財經時報》采訪時說道。 這個房子由曬干的磚塊和水泥砌成,有泥土地面,配有柴爐,沒有水管。據(jù)說屋里的電器裝置不大好用。附近的一條小溪供應新鮮的飲用水。不過到了冬天,水源就會凍結。 赫納德茲說,“冬天這里很冷,找食物不容易。我們必須在Candelilla田地上勤懇勞作,因為這是我們唯一的工作,是我們的生計所在”。 這對夫婦共撫養(yǎng)了7個孩子,其中6個都已成婚,住在不遠處。 相關閱讀 (中國日報網英語點津 實習生王賓雷 編輯:Julie) |
Vocabulary: boulder: 大圓石,巨礫 |