Electrical issues...

When I first came here, a lot of people warned me about the electrical outages. But surprisingly in the first couple weeks of my trip they didn’t really manifest. So, I didn’t worry about them. I thought the power problems were exaggerated and I didn’t really think about it. I bought a flashlight, but it was no big, right? Wrong.

In the last few weeks, the power outages have become a huge problem here. They are short more than 150 megatons of energy. There are daily rolling blackouts throughout the country. And there has been at least 2 days in the past 2 weeks with no energy all day. Yesterday the power went out from 9 to 3. But most often it goes out for 4 hours or less. For the last week I have been going home early, not in a “woohoo I don’t have any work to do” way, but in a “boo the electricity is out again and I can’t do any work” way. Boo! Mostly for the last week the power has gone out at 4 pm (or around about that time) daily. Sometimes it lasts only an hour, but more often now, it stays off until 9 or 10 at night.

I may have mentioned this before, but when I was in the hospital, the power went out (yes in the hospital too). They don’t have separate generators so they can’t control the power any better than anyone else in the community. The government has finally stepped in signing a contract to purchase additional power and to build additional generators for the country, but who knows how long it will be before they see the effects? In Cusmapa for example, one of the rural areas I will be visiting, there are no street lights because there was a power failure at one of the transformers and the power company refuses to repair it. Many people have told me that you must have a flashlight in Cusmapa to see at night because the streets are pitch black. The government so far has done nothing about repairing the street lights, nor are there any plans to do so as yet.

So, I lead you through all of this to say on Tuesday night after being depressed from sitting in the dark for so long. I finally went to bed. But, I couldn’t sleep. It was really hot and there was nothing to do to cool down. Then round about 9 pm, I here music screaming at me from across the street:

“I'll be there for you
These five words I swear to you
When you breathe I want to be the air for you
I'll be there for you
I'd live and I'd die for you
Steal the sun from the sky for you
Words can't say what a love can do
I'll be there for you”

Yep, you got it Bon Jovi, “I’ll be there for you.” This place trips me out. One day they are booming big ranchero music, then Bone Thugs and Harmony, and now Bon Jovi. It definitely cheered me up and I fell asleep to the sounds of the Crossroad album.

So, I have to say, I never really appreciated Entergy before, but I definitely do now. While we might pay a lot for our electricity (my bill this month was $90 and only Bean and Mo are there and hopefully they are not using up every light in the house) at least it’s fairly reliable and we don’t have to worry about throwing out our food every couple of days (which I have had to do three times here because of all day power outages).

I also have to say that this trip has made me infinitely more grateful for all the things that I have and has made me realize that we need to do more to spread our good fortune to others both in our country and outside of it. So when I thank God for my blessings, I will remember to thank him for the things that I take for granted including knowing that the light switch will always work.