My parents have told stories of the practically annual Thanksgiving Day storms, where the turkeys were cook on barbeques, camp stoves, fire places, etc, just to make the meal go off as planned. I don't know if I would be that determined. I'd just eat some salad and some cold mashed potatoes, wrap up in a blanket, and take a nap. The power never stayed out long growing up, since we were close to a hospital and therefore one of the first grid squares to get fixed. For those few precise hours when we were reverted to the ninteenth century were always met with anticipation. A fire would be built, candles would get lit, and dad would break out the acoustic guitar to pass the time - a grand amusement for a young child. It always makes me think about a combination of the early settlers a la Little House on the Prarie and the roughly 1.6 billion people in the world who live without electricity daily.
 |
| Candle lit jail at the Kasbah of Chefchaouen, Sept 2011 |
The two times I've been to Africa so far have each had their moments without electricity. On this last trip to Morocco, we awoke in the small mountain town of Chefchaouen to find that all the power was out. We went into town to bide our time, which was not an issue for most things. We visited the Kasbah, which having been build before electricity came to the Rif Mountains, had adequate windows and skylights that seeing was not a problem. In the darker areas, such as the jail, the candles gave an eerie, almost haunted quality to the low ceiling and the chains. The only problem we faced was needing to get more cash for dinner - remedied by the US cash that I brought alone for back up as all the ATMs were down. Life goes on without electricity. Since multiple forms of power are utilized (gas, wood, coal, sunlight), their world doesn't stop with a brown out as it does in the US. Similarly, the power went down in Egypt and Ethiopia. You've never seen so many stars as in the Simien mountains at 10,000 ft with the power out. (Mental note - start packing a small flashlight when travelling... it would have made getting back to our room much easier and the night sounds less intimidating)
Winter in the Pacific Northwest almost always means stormy weather, which in turn means an acute sense of the hard life of the poor. No one wants to think about sleeping outside when it gets into the 30s (or lower) at night. We all feel better when emergency shelters for the night are able to open and when we give our token can of cranberry sauce to the holiday food drives. When it gets dark by 4pm, we prefer not to think about navigating the cold dark night alone. While waiting for the bus the other night a man came by asking for change. After one person told him "I'm sorry" instead of a direct no, he retorted "Don't be sorry, you're alive!" He continued to ramble about it as the person walked away, but it cause me to think: are we really sorry or do we just say that we are sorry to assuage our own guilt for choosing to not give the change from the bottom of our bags. I never carry cash and therefore almost never have any change, except for the odd penny or nickel I find on the ground. Perhaps this behavior has developed as a way to not feel the guilt of saying no since I have nothing to give.
