Tiffany Henschel

The result of two months conducting field research was not a neatly packaged project. It turned out to be a multi-faceted journey to better understand the complexities of living in the periphery of a megalopolis like Mexico City.

Mapping the Periphery

Using GPS photography and in the context of water systems, I took several walking tours through the Gabriel Hernandez neighborhood in order to create a better understanding of how water flowed in and out of the neighborhood. Mexico City’s water distribution is unique in many ways. How could I understand its complexities?

Tools for Conversation

I learned that despite the fact Tepeyac Park bordered the Gabriel Hernandez neighborhood, most residents did not frequent the area. In an effort to understand the everyday practices surrounding water and the relationship between both residents and stewards/visitors of the park and the water systems that governed them, I conducted interviews asking people to 1. Visualize and map out every single time someone came across water. 1. Draw a psychogeographic map of how water flowed in and out of homes, and 3. take me on a tour of where water was important in Tepeyac Park.

Background / Research

1. Land Subsidence, Input/Output, Water Systems
The first few days were spent immersing ourselves into various areas of Mexico City. I gravitated naturally towards water infrastructure, the environment, and levels of efficiency/access to basic needs. I learned during an orientation how the current center of Mexico City was built in the middle a dry lake bed by the Aztecs in response to a sign from the Gods. They built incredibly advanced, efficient canal systems in order to incorporate the existing water into the city. When the Spanish came, (long story short) they conquered the Aztecs and tore their civilization to ruins, rebuilding in such a way that obliterated the canal system, opting for a drier climate similar to what they were accustomed to. 

Mexico City is basically built on gelatin. And it's sinking; some spots are subsiding at a rate of over a foot per year.

This, compounded with an explosion in population and infrastructure that can't keep up, and the fact that the aquifer underneath the city is being dried up several times faster than it can be replenished, makes for an incredibly complicated, interesting situation. My first few days involved a lot of water infrastructure photos, sinking proof, and the like.

2. Bordearte

Our local coordinator introduced us on Thursday to the members of Bordearte, a collective of creatives living in the same neighborhood of Mexico City, in a small periphery neighborhood called Gabriel Hernandez. The collective just put out the second issue of their magazine, in which they tell stories about the culture of this border neighborhood, illustrating what it's like living on the periphery of a metropolis. They also host educational workshops for neighborhood kids, who otherwise don't have much to do after school. They hope this will add to the culture of their neighborhood, and also keep kids away from drugs and violence, a commonality in the neighborhood (we were told not to hang out at night, and never to walk around alone, even during the day, and although I see the potential for violence and know it exists, I felt safe each time I visited and people were extremely nice to me)

I was immediately attracted to the unique qualities of this neighborhood. First, it is an underserved part of Mexico City, and it's on the literal edge of the state, situated right next to the State of Mexico (recently Mexico City has become its own state, city, and federal district, somewhat echoing that of Washington DC). It is also built on an extremely steep hill with a national park at the top of it, covered with non-native Eucalyptus trees that the government planted in the 1930's. 

The area didn't used to be an official part of Mexico City, but people kept building there, slowly creeping up the hill, adding to the informal, haphazard nature of the landscape. In 1990 a water system was added to the neighborhood, supplying tap (but not drinkable, like the rest of the city) water via gravity to thousands of people from a 6" pipe at the top of the hill. The streets are only accessible by car for a while; as the hill gets steeper, the "streets" become more like informal sidewalks. Google street view only goes so far (there is a lack of presence on the internet about this neighborhood, which I also found interesting).

As a result, this neighborhood is a conglomerate of official and unofficial, local and global, formal and informal. The water system itself was enough to get me hooked. (Click here to check out their Facebook page)
 

Our local coordinator introduced us on Thursday to the members of Bordearte, a collective of creatives living in the same neighborhood of Mexico City, in a small periphery neighborhood called Gabriel Hernandez. The collective just put out the second issue of their magazine, in which they tell stories about the culture of this border neighborhood, illustrating what it's like living on the periphery of a metropolis. They also host educational workshops for neighborhood kids, who otherwise don't have much to do after school. They hope this will add to the culture of their neighborhood, and also keep kids away from drugs and violence, a commonality in the neighborhood (we were told not to hang out at night, and never to walk around alone, even during the day, and although I see the potential for violence and know it exists, I felt safe each time I visited and people were extremely nice to me)

I was immediately attracted to the unique qualities of this neighborhood. First, it is an underserved part of Mexico City, and it's on the literal edge of the state, situated right next to the State of Mexico (recently Mexico City has become its own state, city, and federal district, somewhat echoing that of Washington DC). It is also built on an extremely steep hill with a national park at the top of it, covered with non-native Eucalyptus trees that the government planted in the 1930's. 

The area didn't used to be an official part of Mexico City, but people kept building there, slowly creeping up the hill, adding to the informal, haphazard nature of the landscape. In 1990 a water system was added to the neighborhood, supplying tap (but not drinkable, like the rest of the city) water via gravity to thousands of people from a 6" pipe at the top of the hill. The streets are only accessible by car for a while; as the hill gets steeper, the "streets" become more like informal sidewalks. Google street view only goes so far (there is a lack of presence on the internet about this neighborhood, which I also found interesting).

As a result, this neighborhood is a conglomerate of official and unofficial, local and global, formal and informal. The water system itself was enough to get me hooked. (Click here to check out their Facebook page)

3. Water and Pumping Systems of GH
I went back several days later to map the water system of the Gabriel Hernandez neighborhood. The water goes from a (quickly drying) lakebed about 100 miles away, and travels underground, losing up to 40% along the way due to broken pipes, and gets to the bottom of the hill. From there, two pumps push the water up a pipe to a holding tank at the top of the hill, where it sits and trickles down to the homes. Gravity feeds the water into tinacos, which are small black holding tanks on rooftops. There the water is fed into the house via gravity. Everyone "shares" the pressure. Sometimes, a household will be lucky enough to purchase a separate pump, giving them more pressure but taking it away from surrounding homes.

"The pumps used to be on all day, and the water pressure used to be better," said Ruben, one of the pump controllers. "A few years ago the government came to improve the pipes, and since then, there's less pressure, and residents only receive water from 7am until 2pm." This is actually how we met Ruben. We knew the water would be turned off around 2, and waited at the pump until he got there.

Here I am, a US citizen who gets water whenever she wants from the tap, and bitches about the chlorine and fluoride. These residents only get water pumped to their tanks a few hours each day, and they don't even drink that water. They also buy bottled water from the filtered water store down the street. The owner pays $15,000 pesos every two days to rent a pipa (water truck) to drive to Texcoco Lake and fill it up and bring it back, where it goes through an 8-step process to purify. He'll refill people's 5-gallon jugs and seal them. (This forced me to think, what does sealing something even mean? What is new, anyway?)

The bottled water industry is huge in Mexico; it's the 3rd largest seller of bottled water in the world, and bottled water is the #1 product sold in Mexico. Residents deal with this inequality in access to water, only to have to buy bottled water too. This resonated with me.