(Photo opposite: Parched skeletons painted on our outside wall reveal the water woes.) The first time it happened, I thought, “there must be a malfunction of some kind. No one knowingly would allow this to occur.” By the tenth time, the situation commanded action, for now, it was destroying property - mine. That line in the movie Blood Diamonds, “T.I.A., This is Africa,” kept resonating, although I changed one letter to “T.I.M. This is Mexico”, but even that resigned response to odd happenings here proved reed thin.
From my terrace, the sound of rushing water suggested that my house, sucked up in a Dorothy and Toto like whirlwind, had been deposited smack dab aside a cascading waterfall. Outside our gate, a swollen river raced by where only hours ago, I walked the street. I climbed to the mirador to look for the source of furious water, despite a cloudless, Sunday sky.
A stone structure adjacent to our property provoked curiosity since we moved to Chapala, Mexico. Looking like an unfinished Maya pyramid with a flat mesa, children played atop its cement surface. Now, from my perch, I watched water gush from an 18 inch pipe jutting out of its slanted side. Aha, a reservoir, un deposito del agua serviced by SIMAPA, the water authority, I concluded. The neighborhood’s water source flowed with destructive vigor, spewed forth for hours and surged down the street in waste. Water saturated the clay earth and looking for an alternate path, found crevices in our brick and adobe wall. It bulged from the penetrating force, as the liquid maneuvered underneath and poured into the lap pool.
Sundays and fiesta days are not times to need emergency services in Mexico. I called SIMAPA- un mensaje ( a message), los bomberderos ( the fire department)- another mensaje, the police- it wasn´t their problem and finally Civil Protection. God bless the man who found someone to shut off the water.
Ironically, we’ve needed to order water on occasion from a pipa (independent person with a water tanker truck) to fill our dry aljibe (underground water cistern) at 300 pesos a pop, because SIMAPA hadn’t pumped water into our holding tank. This annoyance has been so consistent, that we named our house Casa No Agua, with parched skeletons painted on our outside wall.
My husband has jokingly suggested that the PIPA driver might be the one emptying the reservoir. To sum up this situation - water, water, everywhere, but not a drop to use; remember, T.I.M. We don’t drink the water here.
I drew a diagram tracing the water’s route and headed to SIMAPA for a face to face discussion. The utility’s director listened intently, patiently weeded through my imperfect Spanish and understood the problem in the end. More pressing than my property damage, the waste of millions of gallons of water grabbed his attention.
Apparently, someone turns on the water to fill up the reservoir, but for unexplained reasons, fails to return to shut off the valve once the reservoir is full. Responsively, he provided his private phone number to call on Sundays or fiesta days, if this problem ever happened again. I clarified “when”, not “if”, as this gushing happens with regularity, that I would call him without hesitation and that unless this stops, he should consider how SIMAPA is going to pay for my property damage. The next day I had the opportunity to test this plan. Within minutes of the river forming and my dialing, the SIMAPA supervisor arrived on the scene, camera in hand, to document the happening. Amazingly, the occurrences ceased and nary a drop of water spewed from the pipe for months. Knowing that nothing is fixed here, only patched, I kept the supervisor’s phone number handy.
It happened again one Sunday. I called el jefe and within an hour or so, the water stopped flowing. Frequency continued to mount, I continued to call and the water continued to stop after the calls. Then Mexican Independence Day, Sept. 16th, arrived. I heard the waterfall around 1 pm. The river raced down the street, the yard puddled, the drains gurgled and the pool filled. I heard the merriment of the holiday, the fireworks and the music wafting through the air from Chapala. Pleas for help would fall of deaf ears today. I made incessant phone calls, to the supervisor - disponible- unavailable, to the police, firemen, civil protection- “ It’s that gringa again,” I could hear them silently mouthing the words. Gawkers showed up to find the water source of the river now flowing down the carretara. People buzzed my doorbell to tell me that my pool must be overflowing. I just glared back.
Finally at 1030 PM, 5 firemen arrived. They watched the water gush from the reservoir, echoed a few “ay, yi, cayumbas,” waded through the rushing river and surveyed the stream under my wall. I jumped with glee, but the glee faded as they shrugged and left. The water had been running non stop for 10 hours. I took up vigil on the terrace, for when the wall gave way and bricks tumbled into the pool, I wanted to be able to say “I was there when…”Around 1 AM, it mercifully stopped.
The next day, I headed straight to the SIMAPA office to speak to the supervisor. “Senora, thieves broke into the house of the man responsible to turn off the water. They kidnapped his wife and he had to go to Guadalajara after them,” he explained. I think I got the translation correct. What could I say? “Que lastima” (what a shame), or how about “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
“Señor, for whatever reason, catastrophe or unexplained phenomenon, this situation must stop,” I demanded. “I want a pipe installed to run from the reservoir’s overflow pass my house to the street,” I insisted. Miraculously, he agreed, without hesitation. He knew that T.I.M. would no longer work and to his credit, he knew it no longer should. Stay tuned, for the next water crisis. We all know there will be one.
* More Articles on Living in Mexico
* Real Estate in Mexico
* Banks in Mexico - Worldwide Banking Directory
* Universities in Mexico - Colleges & Universities listed by Country
* Embassies and Consulates of Mexico
