Due to its low relief, Fuerteventura is one of the most arid islands of the Canary archipelago. The lack of water resources has caused, throughout history, serious difficulties in extracting the fruits from the land for subsistence. Faced with such a desert panorama, the Majorero peasant sought solutions to take advantage of the flows of drinking water, which are collected on the island when the rains are generous. The remedy for this great problem is in the topsails, nateros or drinkers. This technique consists of the diversion of runoff water, which runs through the ravines after a significant rainfall, to collect it in the suitably prepared fields. The water, loaded with silt and organic matter, covers the land and filters, to rise later, by capillarity, allowing crops to be grown. Sometimes the topsails are large terraces with walls raised by solid earth or stone walls. On the island of Fuerteventura there is always one great constant: waiting for the generous and beneficial rain. The water collected in the rafts is a consolation for agricultural tasks. The year that I have seen it rain the most here in a row, was the year 49, 50, 51, 52 and 53. Those years it rained... Those ravines were there and it ran and it rained a lot. Tomás Marichar is a Majorero peasant who, through this system of topsails, grows peas, corn or "millo", cereals, chickpeas... This is filled with water and maybe it is full two days, and three days it is empty. And later, if it rains again, a month or sixty days later, if it rains again, they give it water, if the pipes are not removed, no water enters, because if the earth doesn't clog and it's not the same. You have to know this land in order to get the most out of it , because if you don't, you sow it, water immediately enters it and the harvest is gone. Although the chickpeas that he planted in February have suffered the effects of the drought, when June arrives they have to be uprooted to harvest their fruits. With the morning humidity, when the plants are leathery, Tomás pulls the chickpea plants out of the ground. In the same way as the cereal, when they are dry, the chickpeas will have to be threshed on the threshing floor . The most common tool is the threshing machine pulled by horses or by camels, or by a combination of both. Because of its ability to resist times of drought, the camel is the animal that has best adapted to agricultural work in Fuerteventura. Before, all the neighbors had camels, some had two, others had three. And later, a man took care of it every day, he came, they would throw them out there, 50, 60, 70 camels, and they would take them to all those coasts to eat, and in the afternoon it was their turn to go upstairs, today one would go and tomorrow another and past another. Those were the times when threshing, harvesting and then taking care of them out there, and then feeding them, of course. After the year 60 the camelladas ended. Camels, almost extinct in the Canary Islands, have been an important driving force for the harsh fields and paramos of Majorero, until recent times. Ramón is one of the few camel drivers who take care of these animals that have adapted perfectly to the flat orography of the island and its steppe climate. Fifteen days. Fifteen days can be without drinking, the camel takes water for fifteen days. Drink now and you can leave her for fifteen days and she won't die. The other fifteen days come, the fifteen days come and he drinks for the 15 days. It has water inside the stomach and it has water in all the veins. Since his childhood, Ramón has dedicated himself to the trade of camel driver. From the age of three, these animals are ready to work and can carry about 300 kilos of cargo. But, for this, they must be tamed, and it is not an easy task, since their wild nature requires very special treatment. More than hitting him like that with the stick, he doesn't walk. I teach him with the stick. I don't give him... Now because he's already wild. He's coming to kiss me too. Kiss Me. don't kiss me From the camel one does what one wants from it. Well, you have to treat him in many ways, with love and if he does a prank, give it to him so that he knows why he has done the prank. I always usually carry a stick, no matter how much they say there's no reason to hit him if he doesn't mess up. Then the animal begins to prick or whatever it is and you hit it a couple of sticks over there and that aftertaste it has is gone. José Cabrera is another farmer who knows this corpulent ruminant well, which Viera y Clavijo described in his Dictionary of Natural History as "a large, robust animal with a strange figure, very long neck, bulging eyes, small ears,... " The camel lives to about 30 years, approximately, and its teeth can tell its age at different stages of its life. This camel is already six or seven years old. Look at these little dogs that we tell you. Fangs guys. Until the introduction of the automobile, trucks and tractors, on the island of Fuerteventura, camels were used for different tasks of loading, riding and traction. In order to obtain optimum performance from his forces, the Majorero peasant had a series of tackles that allowed him to adapt the load to his hunchback or hump. In this way, it could transport straw, gorse for fuel for bakeries and all kinds of agricultural products. In addition to serving as a means of transportation for people, when motor vehicles did not exist, the camel was also used in construction to carry all kinds of belongings. The farmers who were dedicated to the load with these ruminants had camel herds of more than one hundred animals that, hooked one after another, carried large amounts of material. And camels have also been used, until very recently, as traction for agricultural implements and as a driving force to turn the mechanisms of waterwheels or bakeries. Given all this panorama of crops waiting for the beneficial water that the sky denies them and that, when it falls, becomes devastating, a figure becomes essential on the island of Fuerteventura: the varista. Pedro Hernández is a variista who, with a grenadier's rod, dedicates himself to looking for this precious liquid on the island, displaying the powers that he inherited from his father at the age of 20. Well, my father, may he rest in peace, used it and then one fine day I said, I'm going to see if the stick works with me and then I started to work with the stick and I saw that it worked and through what I knew and how little that I have been learning, since I have arrived until now. Pedro has traveled kilometers and kilometers throughout the island detecting underground currents, with that special sensitivity to capture certain radiations, used by dowsers to discover underground springs and metalliferous veins, called dowsing. I am here, right now, I orient myself here, east, west, north and south. So now here, I look for all the currents from east to west. Well, the rod is held like this, in this way, it is lashed here and then you start to walk... and as you walk, the rod goes down and you work... Here you turn back. Here comes the current. Pedro holds the rod up with such energy that his hands feel the pressure of his fingers. When it detects an undercurrent, the rod is strongly attracted to it. The varista raises it again while walking and it falls violently again. Thus, successively, until the rod exceeds the area where the current passes and the rod stops. Because look, here he works, and now I'm going to give him the other side and while I'm walking, he's working. Here it turns. Up to this point. From there where I saw, up to here the current passes, it comes. Which is the same one that I have in... Here I put the rod, let's suppose, and then, every time it goes down once, I go back up and back down. Each time it goes up and down is a meter. When he has already found out the width of the flow, Pedro can calculate the depth at which it passes. Each time the rod is attracted by the water current, it indicates a distance of one meter. With all the information that the varista puts in the hands of the farmer, he can now start digging to build the well, a key piece in the island's agricultural machinery. The exploitation and use of these underground waters has been carried out thanks to the wells, destined to replace the lack of rain. One of the characteristics of the Majorera house is the existence of a cistern or a water well to supply itself with this liquid element. The camel, on some occasions, and the donkey, on others, with their circular movement, transmitted the necessary driving force, which started the mechanism to draw or "hang" water from the wells. With a continuous rhythm, the canjilones reach the underground current, where they fill with water and rise with the help of ropes. When they reach the horizontal position, they pour the water into a wooden container that is connected to the thirsty fields through a ditch. Standing among the palm trees and already forming part of the Majorero landscape, the abundance of windmills for raising water is justified by the shallowness of the wells and by the force of the wind on the island. With the movement of the blades of the mill, due to the action of strong air currents, the piston of a pump is set in motion that extracts the water from the well to be transported to the desired place. Some windmills have been replaced by motors for lifting the water. The mechanism remains the same: an extraction pump. This liquid element, obtained from underground currents, is stored in a regulating tank for the irrigation of the fields when needed. Like small oases in the middle of the desert, the wells seed the Majorero landscape with hopeful green spaces, where different crops are possible, if the degree of salinity of the waters obtained allows it. Due to the extreme aridity of the island, in the driest years, even the crops typical of the dry land need the help of irrigation. However, the climatic drought does not prevent the cultivation of the most common plant species, such as alfalfa, as long as the presence of a well becomes the great ally of the Majorero farmer. On his small irrigated plot, Manuel Carmona is chopping the scythe to harvest the alfalfa, which has reached its optimal stage of development. On the "picadera", which acts as an anvil, this peasant stretches the iron of the cut, with the blow of a hammer. Then, to sharpen the scythe, pass the stone on both sides of the edge. This task must be carried out during the cut, every short space of time. Manolo cuts the green alfalfa at ground level with a precise movement of the scythe and leaves it spread out across the field. With the rake he makes small piles, to later transport his harvest to a space that he has prepared for natural dehydration. For at least eight days, our friend Manuel will leave the alfalfa to dry, separated from the ground, on a grid, in such a way that the air passes under it and it does not spoil due to humidity. Again, the water collected in the pond returns to flood the plot with a life expectancy. Despite all the means available to the Majorero peasant, the availability of water continues to be scarce, which has prevented the great agricultural transformations of the island. However, today, with all these traditional water uses, on the island of Fuerteventura they have managed to secure crops that, in the past, when the dry years came, were at risk of being lost. I'm Eugenio Monesma, director and producer of the documentary you just saw. 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