Wednesday, March 3, 2010

The Water Truck Cometh

Oaxaca is well known for its water issues amongst expatriates and locals alike. About 6 weeks ago it was the hot topic of conversation at a gathering at our friend John’s. New arrivals want to know how careful they needed to be, and seasoned expatriates shared stories of city water delivery dwindling to nothing more than a few drops, causing them to have to order water.

Well, welcome to The Ralph and Tanya Experience: Ordering Water. This house has not been short on water issues, and we have always chalked them up to being part of the experience of Oaxaca. The pump was broken in the cistern, the pilot on the water heater extinguishes on days with the letter “Y” in them, the pump was forgotten and overflowed the roof, the water pressure is only slightly better than Italy’s, and the shower downstairs is either scalding or cold, nothing in between. All part of the experience.
Of late, we have been paying close attention to the water levels in the cistern, for a few reasons. The pump was supposedly fixed, and the level on the cistern much lower than usual. Our neighbors up the road ran out of water, and there was some controversy about neighborhood selection for water delivery by city officials according to which political party a neighborhood supports. I have a hard time believing that, but water delivery has dwindled to about 25% of what was previously being delivered.

Yesterday, Ralph pumped the water up to the roof-top holding tank (picutred here in all its glory), and we started to monitor our use. Today when he went to mark it, he figured we had two days of water left before we ran out. The phone book came out and we ordered 5000 litres of water, the quoted cost on the phone was 440 pesos. We sit waiting for delivery.

We have changed some of our ways. We do the dishes once per day, filling the sink once, little soap, little rinsing. We have a new “flush only if visually required” rule, and showers are short and efficient. We’ve always brushed our teeth with the water off, and Ralph has been shaving with the water off since we arrived. I feel guilty about not doing these things in the past 5 months, only doing them now, when we are in crisis. How spoiled I am.

In my spoiled state, I did a bit of water consumption research, if you care to know:

About Canada’s abysmal water consumption ranking: 28 out of 29

http://www.environmentalindicators.com/htdocs/indicators/6wate.htm

1 cubic meter of water = 264.17 gallons

Here’s a cool household water calculator:

http://www.csgnetwork.com/waterusagecalc.html

According to my entries using the calculator above, every year my household uses 31390 gallons per capita LESS than the Desert Water Agency per capita water useage. Regardless, this does not change the current state of being 2 days away from having no water!

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