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No water: An epiphany.
Feb. 10th, 2009 07:27 pmSo this evening I was going to go take a quick shower and start my homework, but that plan was destroyed when I turned on my hot water and barely a trickle of lukewarm water came out. I kind of stared at it incredulously for awhile, like, you're a faucet, hot water is supposed to come out of you. But, it wasn't. I waited a bit, and then tried my other two sinks--which are not connected, seeing as I usually get hot water pretty quickly out of the shower and bathroom sink, but the kitchen takes a horrifying 7-8 minutes to get hot. However, NONE of the sinks are yielding hot water--it's not that it's coming out cold, it's that it is literally not coming out. And my first thought, beyond the frustration of well crap I want to take a hot shower, was a shocking reality check...this is real life. This is the truth of the matter, of Arizona. Tucsonians try to deny that they live in the desert, and they bask in all the comforts of the US, but this trickle of water is the truth: this is an arid land. There is no water here. There was some, long ago, but we used it all. The standard of living here is a farce, one that has been created by the Central Arizona Project and a long history of redirecting other people's water across miles and miles of vast expanses where the water wouldn't otherwise go.
But people don't think about that. From what I can tell, the view on water is the same here as it was in MA--it comes from the faucet. They say it's a drought, but that doesn't mean anything unless you work in agriculture. There will always be enough water, the faucet will always work. And it is ABSOLUTELY not true. I am reminded of the statistic that chills as it reverberates in my mind: the average annual per capita water usage of Las Vegas, NV is 36,000 gallons. Of Tijuana, Baja CA, it is 85. Eighty five. How much they must feel like I did just earlier--watching the tiny trickle of cold water, not enough to even effing bathe. Because the US directed all the south-flowing water, they agreed to the Colorado River Compact and built the Hoover Dam, and all the territories and states gathered together to decide who had the rights to the water. Arizonans are miffed about the deal, because California got an unjust percentage considering that Arizona had barely been admitted as a state at the time. But guess who wasn't invited? Mexico. Mexico, whose northern states have far fewer water sources than western US, and whose population's very lives depended upon the water that reached them. Now, so much is dragged out of the riverbeds before it even reaches the border that Mexico has to subsist on the salinated remains. They fester in drought, squalor, and thirst so that Arizonan and Southern Californians can pamper their artificially maintained lawns. And haughty gringos turn their eyes south and think wow, what a mess, why are those people contented to live that way? Why on earth can't they help themselves?
And the kicker is, if I weren't a spoilt American girl, I wouldn't even be resentful that my shower doesn't work. Because I wouldn't expect all the water in the world to be at my fingertips right in the middle of the sea of sand. So much arrogance, so great a sense of entitlement to such artifice. It kind of shocks me.
So anyway, now I've even colder than before. I tried to heat up some water in my kettle and pour it into the bathtub just so I'd be able to run a bar of soap over myself and be done with it, but I started noticing REALLY potent, terrible fumes coming from somewhere...(not sure where. My stove? The hot water pipes? the ventilation fan that turns on when I turn on my bathroom light?) It was really awful, like one of those smells that you automatically hold your breath for, since you instinctually know it's toxic. So I shut the kettle off, turned the faucets off, and turned my bathroom light off, and opened the window to air out the place. And I am cold as fuck. And a bit pissed at the management here. Though, it would be a lie to say that it's been all bad...the experience has certainly been enlightening.
But people don't think about that. From what I can tell, the view on water is the same here as it was in MA--it comes from the faucet. They say it's a drought, but that doesn't mean anything unless you work in agriculture. There will always be enough water, the faucet will always work. And it is ABSOLUTELY not true. I am reminded of the statistic that chills as it reverberates in my mind: the average annual per capita water usage of Las Vegas, NV is 36,000 gallons. Of Tijuana, Baja CA, it is 85. Eighty five. How much they must feel like I did just earlier--watching the tiny trickle of cold water, not enough to even effing bathe. Because the US directed all the south-flowing water, they agreed to the Colorado River Compact and built the Hoover Dam, and all the territories and states gathered together to decide who had the rights to the water. Arizonans are miffed about the deal, because California got an unjust percentage considering that Arizona had barely been admitted as a state at the time. But guess who wasn't invited? Mexico. Mexico, whose northern states have far fewer water sources than western US, and whose population's very lives depended upon the water that reached them. Now, so much is dragged out of the riverbeds before it even reaches the border that Mexico has to subsist on the salinated remains. They fester in drought, squalor, and thirst so that Arizonan and Southern Californians can pamper their artificially maintained lawns. And haughty gringos turn their eyes south and think wow, what a mess, why are those people contented to live that way? Why on earth can't they help themselves?
And the kicker is, if I weren't a spoilt American girl, I wouldn't even be resentful that my shower doesn't work. Because I wouldn't expect all the water in the world to be at my fingertips right in the middle of the sea of sand. So much arrogance, so great a sense of entitlement to such artifice. It kind of shocks me.
So anyway, now I've even colder than before. I tried to heat up some water in my kettle and pour it into the bathtub just so I'd be able to run a bar of soap over myself and be done with it, but I started noticing REALLY potent, terrible fumes coming from somewhere...(not sure where. My stove? The hot water pipes? the ventilation fan that turns on when I turn on my bathroom light?) It was really awful, like one of those smells that you automatically hold your breath for, since you instinctually know it's toxic. So I shut the kettle off, turned the faucets off, and turned my bathroom light off, and opened the window to air out the place. And I am cold as fuck. And a bit pissed at the management here. Though, it would be a lie to say that it's been all bad...the experience has certainly been enlightening.
