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They keep their clothes in a pile where the driver's seat used to be, and Mr. Chavez has installed a tiny three-burner stove and refrigerator beyond the bed, near the rear emergency door. He strapped an air conditioner to a side window to little effect; the bus still heats up like an oven in the sweltering summer sun. In winter it is an icebox. Mr. Chávez bathes standing on his bus's front steps, ladling water from a bucket. The water comes from a spigot out front. It is undrinkable because the water filtration plant, which takes its water from the Rio Grande, was built almost 40 years ago, and cannot come close to providing clean water for the area's swelling population.
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