No Power

That is a frequent cry here, usually in English. It is often accompanied with the shrugging of shoulders. The two words are announced when the electricity goes off. I guess I shouldn’t complain because on some islands, it is a daily occurrence while it may happen once a month where I live. I have heard that some areas of the Philippines expect the power to be off for up to 12 hours a day. Even when the power is on though, it is not reliable and frequent surges have a habit of causing havoc to the internet connection and they do odd things to computers among other problems.

Every few months, my power company, Penelco fires up their loudspeaker van that drives through every neighborhood in town to announce a scheduled power outage. These are done for necessary repairs to the grid or some piece of equipment. At these times, I have learned to expect the power to be out for at least 8 hours or more. Occasional brown outs will occur in the middle of lightning storms also, but work crews will have the power back on within hours or it may pop back up more quickly without any human help.

This sunny morning, for no apparent reason, the electricity dropped off at 8:45 and came back at 9:10. Most Filipinos are accustomed to the outages and view them as necessary nuisances in their daily lives. They know to plan ahead by stocking candles and flashlights, to cook with propane, and a large percentage have only foam coolers to keep some things cold. On the other hand, it can be a major pain to me. I have a 2 burner electric stove and my trusty microwave to do my cooking with. Obviously it’s not possible for me to heat anything during an outage. Everything in my freezer melts when the electricity stays off for an extended period. The very worst inconvenience is none of the above and it affects everyone even the poorest among us. All of the fans and air conditioners go off reminding us that this is a hot climate to live in.