Mexico’s capital city teems with skyscrapers in wealthy neighborhoods like Reforma, a testament to the wealth that exists here.On a bright day you can see them from the San Gregorio neighborhood, just 15 miles away as the crow flies.But in San Gregorio, there is no wealth. There are some places with no running water with which to wash your hands, in the midst of the pandemic.
San Gregorio sits in the chronically poor Xochimilco district of the city, where poverty rates hover around 40 percent according to the latest government data.Drive around and you’ll run across oil drum-sized blue plastic containers, often grouped together. These barrels are where city water trucks, called “pipas,” deposit water to be used by the barrels’ owners.Victoria Arias Lopez, 26, is one of many neighbors who depend on these water deliveries. The barrels help for everyday household needs.”Every 15 days, they come here to leave us water,” Arias Lopez told CNN. “We always have to clean trash out of the buckets before the ‘pipas’ come.”The water only lasts her family about three days. Though the government says it’s potable water, Arias Lopez says it’s too dirty to drink. She doesn’t know when these trucks get maintenance or if the water is actually good quality for drinking. Besides, she says, there is also the accumulation of leaves and dirt which gather inside the containers from one fill-up to the next.
