The water truck parks on a block, a 10-minute walk uphill from Rocio Vega Morales’ house, for 15 minutes at most. She has no clue what time the pipa will arrive in her neighbourhood, delivering the water she and her four children need to bathe, wash dishes and flush the toilet. It could be while she is at work, or in the middle of the night.
The drought in North Mexico means taps are dry in the city of Monterrey so pipas, primarily run by the city authority, are the only way to deliver water to homes and businesses. As people who cannot afford bottled water are drinking the brackish water from the trucks, anger is growing here that beverage companies with bottling plants here, including Coca Cola and Heineken, are extracting billions of litres of water from public reservoirs.
