We Have Water Again September 12
The sound of water falling in my tank is making me very happy right now. For two days no water fell in my tank, but I didn’t notice that I hadn’t heard it. I went on blissfully using water without knowing that I was headed for a crisis. I learned about the impending water crisis in the middle of dealing with a gas crisis involving a near hypothermic 18 month old, but that’s a story for another time.
Now that I live in Mexico, I’ve learned to appreciate water like I never had before. Before you live in Mexico, your head knows that “water is essential for life” but the concept stays in quotes so to speak. It isn’t until you get to Mexico and have to figure out how to wash your dishes out of a bucket, flush your toilette with a bucket, ration drinking water, strategize on how not to create dirty laundry, and plan your social life around lack of shower water that you start to think more personally on the topic of water. The quote becomes like this: “Water is essential for LIFE.”
So when my neighbor told me that he was out of water, and my pressure got dangerously low, I knew I was about to run out of water. As an expatriate in Mexico it is my duty to create an expectation of good service and accountability so I called the water department–something almost no Mexicans will do. I called just to let them know that somebody in my neighborhood cared that there was no water and that I expected to have my service returned. The man replied honestly (what a breath of fresh air) and told me that, yes, they had a problem with their pump feeding our area and since it was the end of the day they were hoping to have the thing fixed the next day (as in mañana). Uh oh.
In October of 2006 the entire city of Cuernavaca was without garbage service for weeks. Garbage piled up in the streets and created a city-wide health menace, let alone major nuisance. Based on this experience I knew that sometimes problems can get way out of proportion in Mexico. Alarm bells went off in my head and we filled laundry tubs with water bucketed from my landlord’s cistern. This spare water allowed me to get by for the next 18 hours until… now! Water is again falling into my tank and I’m elated to hear it.
As an expatriate in Mexico it is also my responsibility to create an expectation of respect and gratitude for the hard work of service personnel, so I called the water department back and thanked them–something almost no Mexicans will do.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. When you retire in Mexico make sure that you live in a house that has a cistern. You will need to delve into this water reserve from time to time.