My friend always tells me: for someone to understand what you’ve been through, you should talk to someone who has experienced the war here in Spain.
And even then, she says, if they aren’t the same person, with the same emotions and way of processing events… even then they might not understand you.
I think that to understand what another person is going through, you must have experienced something similar. Just a few days ago, I was moved as I told my friend about a difficult and traumatic situation from my past. We both shared our experiences as if they were endless books.
Many Latin American countries endure experiences that a first-world country may never understand, because they haven’t gone through the same circumstances and because there are people in those countries, myself included, who were born into crisis and have lived in crisis their whole lives.
Among the things that happen are power cuts, which are frequent in many of those countries. It’s a real disruption to modern life. I remember living in a house where the electricity came in as an end-of-line connection, which meant there was always low voltage. No matter how many complaints were made, the wiring was laid out that way and my house was at the very end of the neighbourhood. And it wasn’t a slum or anything like that. That’s just how things were.
That caused a lot of problems, especially in summer, those summers when it was over 40 degrees. You couldn’t have air conditioning, and not just because you couldn’t afford it, but because the electricity wouldn’t have been powerful enough; all the appliances would have blown a fuse. There were summers when I had to choose: either I had the computer on or the fan, and I couldn’t have the fridge plugged in if I wanted to use the washing machine. You had to choose just one thing. You get used to taking an appliance and checking the voltage. If it was 170, we could use the electricity; if not, we couldn’t. And the normal level should be 200, but it never reached that. The worst day I measured the voltage, it was 128. How could I forget that!
The worst thing was when the power cut out without warning, because there were also scheduled cuts; since the necessary work hadn’t been done, there wasn’t enough electricity for everyone. But I worked with the lights on, I taught classes. In those cases, I improvised and gave theory-based lessons; I didn’t need to look at a computer, as everything was in my head. Sometimes I’d also switch to a topic that didn’t require electricity or the internet.
But on several occasions the power would go out for more than 20 hours, and in those cases the problem was keeping food refrigerated. I had to go to my second cousin’s house so she could store it for me, take everything there and simply wait. If there was natural light, I’d go into my garden, breathe in the air and try to stay calm. Of course, I had to unplug everything at home because when the power came back on, it did so with a power surge and everything would burn out. It was a situation of constant uncertainty and stress that wore you down over time.
When I arrived in Spain, I thought I was on Mars; there were no power cuts, and if there were, they lasted only seconds, I didn’t even notice them. There was no power surge; appliances didn’t burn out. I assure you, I thought I was on Mars. Of course, if there was a fault, they’d cut the power to fix the problem, but it was a one-off, isolated incident.
Until last year, when there was a blackout. The power grid collapsed because, to switch from the energy we’d been using to so-called green energy, work had to be done to ensure there was enough for everyone. That didn’t happen, and it collapsed. From one moment to the next, the whole of Spain was left without power, without communications. I said to myself: Argentina.
After seven years, you get used to it; for instance, I didn’t have any candles or a torch, just the light from our phones. I remember it was the only day I couldn’t post on Hive. We were cut off from the outside world. We had an old phone with an aerial; we could pick up a bit of a radio signal. That’s how we found out what was happening. At first, people were saying it was a terrorist attack and things like that, but in reality it’s mismanagement; that’s the truth.
Having lived through what I went through in Argentina, the first thing you think about is preserving food. Moving what’s in the fridge to the freezer, stocking up on water because, living in a block of flats, the water pump can fail. There was no lift, of course.
You couldn’t cook, because everything is electric. Never mind, I always know how to improvise; I’ve got the experience. After lunch, I went out onto the street with my brother to check out the situation, and only El Corte Inglés, a well-known shopping centre, had a generator and internet. Then there’s Mercadona; the national chain always has a generator too. But I went to the first one I mentioned, and there, with the little battery I had left, I managed to send a message to Argentina, I have lots of friends there. I briefly explained what was happening. A generic message, the same to everyone. That was all I could do.
I got some candles, paying in cash. The cash machines weren’t working; naturally, nobody was accepting card payments. It’s always advisable to have cash on hand, at least enough for three days. When night fell, we played cards with my family, made some sandwiches for dinner, had some fruit, and chatted at length by candlelight. The old phone had run out of battery. We had no radio. We didn’t know what would happen the next day.
The power of improvisation, adaptation and flexibility is what I’ve learnt in my 40 years living in Argentina; it’s a valuable experience that comes in handy in any situation. My family and I spent a day without electricity, filled with conversation, jokes, laughter and sharing, a different kind of day, but we remained vigilant in case the power cut continued.
The power came back on gradually in different parts of Spain at around 3 am. I was prepared, but many aren’t. The positive thing, I always highlight the positive, was the time spent with the family, a different kind of time, whilst still being prepared and planning for what might happen.
When I read this post, it reminded me of many experiences from years gone by and that so many people around the world go through this every day, four or five hours without power every day, a situation that really shouldn’t be the case. Thank you 
Thank you all for reading today; I wish you a very good weekend. See you soon.
Amonet.
All the photographs are mine.
Used translator Deepl.com free version.