el crispito

Within the first few days of our living here, we returned home one night and found that we had no running water at all. I have since come to be a little more relaxed about these things, taking a cue from the Mexicans here, who seem to possess an amazing ability to go with the flow. But at that time, having heard reports before we left about how the water or power can go out in big cities in Mexico for weeks at a time, I was seriously concerned. Sure, you have to rely on bottled water for drinking anyway, so it wasn't like we were going to die of thirst in the apartment. Still the idea of not being able to shower, wash our hands or have a working toilet worried us.

Back in the United States, if this happened, I'd immediately pick up the phone and call the local water utility to find out what was going on. We had been in Mexico long enough for me to know that it would not be that easy. Even if I could figure out where to call, I'd have to deal with them in Spanish over the phone, and that prospect terrifies me even now after having done it several times. Then there is the fact that the problem might well be within our apartment building, and quite frankly, in Mexico, one hopes that is the case because then you can actually take it upon yourself to fix it and get it done. The sidewalks all over town that look like bombs have hit them attest to the sad fact that public facilities are inconsistently maintained here.

The most sensible place to start was in our apartment building, but we do not live in a large apartment building with hundreds of apartments. We share the building with seven other units, and they are all occupied by families. Most have either young children or old folks, and some have both. You don't just go around knocking on people's doors at 10:30 pm here. Miguel Ángel, the guy that serves as sort of a building manager, lives right below us, but I know that he has a couple of small kids. I didn't want to be the obnoxious new gringo waking them up just because some thing completely normal was going on.

So doing what I always do here when I have some unexpected problem, I called Joseph and Larry to ask them what the proper procedure was for dealing with such a problem. Joseph was kind enough to explain to me how nearly everyone gets their water in their home plumbing to me, and I thought you all might find it informative also.

The water from the city only runs a few hours a day here. This does not mean that you can only shower or wash your clothes during that time though. The water from the city comes on and as necessary, fills up a big cistern under the building, which is called an aljibe. I don't know how big an aljibe usually is, nor do I know how big the one is that services our apartment building. However, I have since read in several places online that ones for homes usually hold a week's supply of water. In order to give everyone running water, the tried-but-true method of gravity is used. The water from the aljibe is pumped up to a smaller tank (or in some cases, multiple tanks) on top of the building which is known as a tinaco. This holds considerably less water than the aljibe, but it usually is black and has the added benefit of heating the water slightly before it gets to your water heater, saving you a little cash on gas.

The tinaco usually has a device like the tank on a toilet, which has a floater that goes up and down with the water level in the tank. When the floater gets down to a certain point, it turns on the pump that brings water up from the aljibe, and so theoretically, the tinaco should never be empty. Yet just like the tank of your toilet and the valve operated by the floating ball in there, it is hardly a high-tech device, and often it gets stuck or otherwise doesn't probably turn on the pump when it should. In this case, one usually has to jiggle something to get it working again. This is a frequent cause of your water running out, but it is also possible to have the pump from the aljibe to the tinaco go bad, or to have the line between the two break.

Joseph asked us if we knew where that stuff was on our roof, and of course, we didn't. Our options then were to either go track it down with a flashlight, go bother Miguel Ángel (and Joseph joined us in thinking that wasn't the best idea), or to wait until morning and see then if we had running water. If at that time we didn't, it might be serious enough to warrant going to see Miguel Ángel, but at that time of night, when we didn't have any pressing need for it, we decided we could hold out for water until morning.

We retired to the balcony and chatted a bit, then started reading the books we were working on. Soon, we heard a noise in the kitchen and came in to check on it. I had inadvertently left the faucet on in the sink, and water was coming out of it just like normal. Since that night, we've only had that happen again once, and we suspect that Miguel Ángel (or someone else that knows how to deal with the pump) sees that there is no water, goes upstairs to jiggle the necessary component and after a few minutes' wait, everyone can go on with their routine.

The incident did reinforce a valuable lesson that we are learning about living here: calm down. Always have a good book around that you can read, or batteries in the radio so that if you have to just relax on the balcony and listen to music for a while, you can. Even with something as basic as water, things just seem to work out in time if you wait long enough. Such "inconveniences" give you a great excuse to just relax and enjoy life for a while.