The Mexico Diaries: Bulmaro

Bulmaro works on the pipes beneath my sink.

Friday morning Bulmaro was back at my door with his screwdriver and pliers. He’d come to disconnect my water purifier and take it to the water purifier repairman. Later that day Señor Rivera called me to say that the water purifier was broken and a part needed to be replaced. The part was in Guadalajara and wouldn’t arrive until Monday. You’d think that with a population of over 250,000 people that you could find a part for a water purifier in Puerto Vallarta but you’d be wrong. You must go to Guadalajara to get the part.

So this morning, there was Bulmaro again, standing at my door holding the water purifier out in front of him as if it were a baby he was handing back to me. It’s all good now, he told me. An hour later he’d connected it to the labyrinth of pipes and hoses under my kitchen sink. “It’s okay now,” he said.

Are you sure? I asked him. Last year when he’d replaced a filter in my water purifier, he’d also told me it was okay but it had leaked after he left.

He smiled and nodded. “Es perfecto.”

Bulmaro left and I went back to my office where I was working on a story. An hour later, I went in to the kitchen to make myself another cup of coffee and noticed a small puddle on the floor. I opened the cabinet beneath the sink. The whole area was flooded. A couple of hours later, Bulmaro was back. He had his screwdriver and pliers with him. He poked around at the pipes and flexible tubes under the sink, made an adjustment here and there, and proclaimed the whole thing in perfect working order. I thanked him profusely. An hour later the puddle on my kitchen floor was even larger than before. I called Señor Rivera who informed me that, according to Bulmaro, there was a problem with the pipes under my sink which is why there was water leaking. Yes, I said, I know that. So I think, said Señor Rivera, that what we should do is get a plumber. Would I like him to do that? Yes, I said, that would be good. “Perfecto,” said Señor Rivera, “already we are working on it.”

An hour later he e-mailed me to tell me that he had gotten ahold of the plumber. He would be here by Wednesday if not earlier. In the meantime, Bulmaro would regularly check in with me. So stepping gingerly around the ever-expanding puddle in my kitchen, I made myself a large margarita and went down to the pool, confident in the knowledge that already Señor Rivera and Bulmaro were working on things.