**// This is a crosspost from a post I made on bearblog.
I live in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Mexico. Veracruz is the state, Coatza is the town.
One of my most vivid memories from elementary school was reading through the natural sciences (or was it geography?) book, and being warned about the possibility of a future without water, and as any normal kid we were freaked out, but our professor told us to calm down, because our town, located in the tropical climate of southern Mexico and surrounded by water bodies, was probably never going to suffer that fate, or at least not soon. It’s been 20 years since this day.
Around 10 days ago, people from the mostly indigenous community of Tatahuicapan, where the water dam that supplies the liquid for southern Veracruz is located, started to block the access to the dam as a way to manifest their rejection towards policies that weren’t benefiting them, in hopes to attract attention from the general public for their cause. No need to say it started well and people understood, but as this conflict became almost permanent (with a shortage at least once a month, sometimes lasting for days), people just started to feel annoyed and defeated, to an almost desensitized point. I’m not here to comment on this situation, as I’ve oversimplified it for the sake of brevity, but I add this as a piece of context. I just try to say I’ve experienced a non-constant water supply for more than a decade due to sociopolitical reasons, but at least we all knew there was water. Now it’s not the case.
Amidst a huge heatwave striking the country and the climate crisis, there’s a temporary water shortage for infrastructure maintenance in my town. However, with the lack of rain in months, it just makes you think maybe there’s no water.
Because of this situation of getting used to not having water for days, people have adapted. A lot of people have water barrels in their roofs as a reservoir that fills up from the main water supply. The downside is that shit makes water extremely hot (specially during the heatwave) if the sun rays hit it directly. One just get used to having hot showers in >40 C weather.
Today at midnight (it’s 7:30 am as I write this blogpost), electricity went off at my block. It’s just natural this happens when everyone has their AC on to make the night bearable. And it’s like this how I ended up laying on my bed, at 2 am, dehydrated, sweating like shit, almost naked, not being able to take a shower to save water for when I need to shower for work, knowing it’s gonna be almost boiling when I do. It really makes you think how things will be for everyone when there’s barely any water or electricity is just too expensive.
And let me tell you something, when there’s no electricity and the temperatures are high, your freezer can’t hold your food for too long. I’ve had all my groceries go to waste a couple of times. I’m in a position where we can just say “ah what a bummer” and just burying more when it’s needed… but with increasing food costs, a lot of people can’t do so.
It really feels like my town is in the early access version of the climate crisis that we’ll all get to live. It’s at times like this that having leukemia is almost comforting, because I know I probably won’t live through the world launch of this bs.