"I take an hour or an hour and a half," said Reyes, 23, a mother of two. "Since we have to fetch it, we don't waste it."

Villagers fill barrels strapped to donkeys' backs, cup their hands for a mouthful and then take their loads home. Most make the trip two or three times a day while men from the town of a few hundred people labor in a nearby city.

The water they lug home is for drinking, cooking and washing up. Refrigerated bottled water sold at two stores is a luxury that few of Xaxamayo's residents often enjoy.

The villagers of Xaxamayo are among the 1.1 billion people around the world, mostly in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, who lack easy access to safe drinking water. The growing number of people on the planet is accelerating demand for water to irrigate crops, to drink and for industry, even as it creates more water pollution.

To work out how to assure adequate supplies of the world's most precious commodity, ministers, hydrologists and environmentalists gathered at the 4th World Water Forum on Thursday in Mexico City.

WATER DISPUTES

Disputes over who gets limited amounts of fresh water are becoming increasingly common between nations and even smaller communities around the world.

Residents in Xaxamayo, less than 120 miles (200 km) from the teeming metropolis of Mexico City, are at odds with the larger neighboring village of Los Angeles, which pumps away most of the available water for its own needs.

Los Angeles has built a concrete shed over its well. Using a faucet on the side of building they make sure their neighbors from Xaxamayo get enough to drink, but not much more.

"They want us to give them our water, but we barely have enough for ourselves," said retired Los Angeles resident Manuel Salazar. "The government should commit to bringing them water. This is a government problem."

Relations between the villages have worsened recently as Xaxamayo residents' frustration grows at water shortages.

"They get aggressive. There have been no clashes so far but they get really angry," Salazar said.

Los Angeles sits on the bank of Lake Valsequillo, but decades of pollution have left it useless. A sign with a skull and crossbones warns that drinking water from the lake is extremely dangerous.

A creek running from the Los Angeles well toward Xaxamayo is stagnant and green with algae because so much water is pumped away from the area.