Great news: I have electricity again. The transformer in my neighborhood blew up 6 months ago and after doing everything I could think of and losing faith that I’d ever drink cold water at my house again, miraculously I hear the sweet hum of my mini fridge.
Living here tests me in ways I never would have imagined and an experience allowing me to live without electricity for this amount of time has produced a few unexpected outcomes. Without being able to refrigerate my food, I ate at my friend Rosa’s house much more often and consequently during lunch time formed my closest friendship with a very young 74 year old Dona. My Spanish is better after spending this time with her and venturing into conversations about the meaning of life, food, and local gossip. I found myself looking forward to these meetings to discuss my projects and voice frustrations/seek advice. Along with eliminating any possible distraction my computer and cell phone could provide, this attributed to feeling more productive in my site. I planned events and meetings to keep me busy. I visited people more while charging my cell phone at their houses. I read books I’ve always wanted to read but never had time to. I played music and sang, loudly. I got really good at eating everything I cooked the same day. I feel asleep at 9 and woke up at 6, a schedule I much prefer after the insanity of college hours.
Then there is the negative. I have lost trust in people. I am skeptical. I am angry. I see corruption. I see good people who aren’t being helped, who have just come to accept that is life – Jean told me the other day, Sarah you are being so Dominican about this….the fatalism I had developed regarding the situation. I did everything I could and I just wouldn’t have electricity again. The plethora of lies. A light company that strings its clientele along and breaks their end of the contract over and over again. Jose, the not much better than a con artist who took our money and appeared to be on the run for a month then tried to hike up the price when he finally brought us the promised transformer a month later. Jerkface. Wasted phone cards with more lies. The frustration dealing with uneducated neighbors and the impossibility to get them to care and unite to take care about a very basic issue, let alone my projects. The hope that would grow repeatedly into a strong rooted weed to only be pulled up and composted after every rain of lies beat down on us. Hah.
It was rough.
Now I am here, 11:30 at night typing on my laptop after just having an hour long phone call, both light bulbs turned on and yes I am listening to that sweet hum of my fridge. Yet, a bittersweet hum. I don’t like that I am connected to this grid and all that it really means to me now. I wish more than anything I could have gotten enough solar panels without thinking how expensive they are and how they would be instantly stolen to run my lightbulb and little fridge so Bija’s wet food wouldn’t be an issue. Still, I’ve learned that I can be happy and feel productive without any luz. Granted I recognize its need for development but also the addiction and absolute panic most feel without it once accustomed to it. Before coming here, a light out was sort of a big deal. Where else could I ever have gone without electricity for so long, (realistically although I respect his ideas, I’m never going to be the guy from into the wild)? I couldn’t more strongly agree now after this experience that what really is needed is a developed independence to be able to take care of your own basic needs and realize you can get used to most anything and still be ok. The definition of basic would greatly differ between a Dominican Dona and an American housewife. Will it still differ for me once I wake up from the campo? Don’t get me wrong, I love having this little fridge back again and not having to walk to the colmado fridge where I was storing Gatorade bottles of filtered water – but there is definitely something in the nights illuminated solely by fireflies and candle lights that provoke the wonder.
Pico Duarte, Ojo de Agua, Good People, Thank You
5 months ago
I have been through a similar experience right here in the USA. Though I can't complain about having clean water the entire time, there was a stent last year before James and I lost our place, where we opted to go without electricity for four months so we could afford to live in all other relams of our lives, which was literally scraping by. He had lost his job and I wasn't working nor could we find any work, and things got bad fast. It was more like, the electricity got shut off one bad day, and we could never afford to turn it back on. Life became a matter of surviving, even in America. We invested in a cooler so we could keep food for the girls and their milk cold, then we bought several candles, and one coleman battery operated lantern, which never outlived the candles anyway. We began to spend our nights sitting on our bed together, talking about everything. I began spending a lot of time with my neighbor, who insited that we cook hot food for ourselves there. All were very ready and willing to help, most were stunned by the fact that we hadn't gone crazy or caved in, we were sticking it out. The girls loved it cause they got to spend time with us more, since the TV and computer didn't work. We went on walks constantly, and for the first time since I had had kids, I weighed my pre-baby weight. We began discussing how a simple life was actually something all people can do, and for James and I, it was perhaps more the life style we needed to be taking on. Not one without electricity, but one of simplicity. When it comes to surviving, you do what you have to. We couldn't have electricity, but that wasn't the end of the world. I think perhaps we knew other harder things were to come, like the ever pressing four months of homelessness we endured after we moved out of our apartment.
ReplyDeleteThese scenarios that play out in our lives are ones to be thankful for, because they teach us that we can survive without the luxuries that are assumed "must haves", to live in America. We fought, things got hard, and damn it.. what I would have done for a hot shower as I stood under the 55 degree stream spraying from the shower head, but at the same time, something in me surely changed after that period in my life too. Like you said, you can more clearly see both sides of it. The wonder in living the way these people do, but also the dark side of it too, the corrupt, the criminal, the evil that is so able to dwell in areas where you are more supceptible to it. There is a slight sense of comfort in the light bulb, and I think a slight sense of higher living(translating in to safer living) in a place that has working electricity. So after all is said and done, even though you can pat yourself on the back for making it through, yes, you still have to wonder, is what you're going back to making you a better person, or is it dragging you farther away from the truths in life?
I know I know, it's totally not the same thing now that I look at it, but I do know how you feel somewhat. It's a hard thing to deal with, but it's a great thing too, when you make it through alive and well.
Love you soo much, you're a power house (no pun intended;0) Keep up the hard work, it's paying off in God's eyes, and that's the most important. XOXO.
-C.C.