I live in the ‘Pearl of the Orient’, or Guadalajara as it’s officially called. The city and its metropolitan area has burdgeoned over the 20-odd years that I’ve lived here. It has very distinct seasons, with the blast of summer coming in April and May, and then the more humid and rainy season from June to September. The rain tends to be short-lived in its daily duration – strangely, it virtually always rains in the early evening or at night – is short but intense, with the blocked drains doing sweet f### all to help reduce the rainwater as it sloshes up over the pavements (‘sidewalks’ to our US readers). You want to drive through a tunnel after it has rained? Choose a different route.
So, you might think that there’s an abundance of water? Lake Chapala, to the south of the city, fills up but other parts of the state of Jalisco suffer drought conditions, with there being little rain from October to May.
You would think, therefore, that the state authorities and the public water company, SIAPA, would make every effort to maintain the water system, unblock the goddamed drains and provide reasonably clean water for the population. Oh yes, you cannot drink the water from a tap here (‘faucet’); it may leave the filtration plant clean but it picks up all kinds of crap as it makes its way through the archaic pipes. It’s rather ironic that the Aztecs and other indigenous peoples of Mexico had very efficient water and irrigation systems
This year, we have seen a steady deterioration in the cleanliness of the water, with many areas of the city seeing it come out of the tap the colour (‘color’) of mud, steadily getting darker to the point that you’d think that black coffee was being piped into our homes. This all came to a head last week, with protests taking place in the city, with one ending up outside the state governor’s residence. His name is Pablo Lemus. And it was a pretty vociferous protest, culminating in the police getting heavy-handed with the protestors.
Now, how do you think that the police tried to disperse the rioters/protestors? Think about it for a moment…
