Ooooh…we have water again (and other expectations which must be managed)

A typical home in Mexico tends to have a tinaco on the roof and possibly a ground-level cistern because water delivery is tricky. Rather than go into a boring explanation, you can learn all about it here if you are so inclined. I have written previously about my frustrations in learning how to get laundry done when there is no water but it hadn’t been an issue for a few months. The lockdown gave me nearly first-world water pressure on laundry days and I was borderline giddy with excitement, aside from the whole people dying thing.

Once businesses reopened, I returned to my routine of starting laundry at about 7:30 am so I could do two loads before the pressure dropped. Keep in mind, the stackable washer/dryer is on the covered porch and is connected to the outside water spigot so the temperature of the laundry is the temperature of the water. It drains into the yard via an exceptionally attractive PVC pipe. Anway, I noticed the pressure dropping lower than normal a couple days ago and assumed there was a problem with one of the water mains so an outage was inevitable. I was right.

Yesterday, people in various neighborhoods were discussing their water situations online and there were scattered outages but we were still dripping along. When I turned on the irrigation to water the trees this morning, there was nothing. No big deal…we have the tinaco so we can still bathe and I can carry buckets from the kitchen sink to the washer in a pinch. If it drags on for too long, we can have a truck deliver water. I checked again at around noon and literally said out loud to no one, not even the dogs, “Ooooh…the water is back on.” I use terminal prepositions when talking to myself.

So this is my life now. I literally push my dogs out of the way to slay aggressive scorpions on the kitchen floor. I vacuum gecko shit from the window sills. I listen for the garbage truck every Friday morning and rush to meet it. I complain when the price of a 30-kg propane tank increases by 70 pesos (approx US $3). I can almost sing along to my neighbor’s favorite songs. And I get excited when the water outage is limited to a few short hours. Now I just need to accept that my Jeep will never run right again. This is Baja.