All the topics are really interesting, and I’d love to write about every single one, but there was one that caught my attention as a Venezuelan—because it feels like it’s about us: electricity.

I was actually looking for something to write about in the community to vent about the power outage I just experienced, which has become a daily occurrence and lasts four hours a day.

Since 2019, the country has been in the dark; those days are etched in people’s subconscious because of the uncertainty we experienced at that time. I personally experienced it in two places: one in my city, with my family, and another blackout in an unfamiliar city. I still remember the gloom, and it triggers anxiety in my emotional brain because I simply can’t forget it.

In fact, I think I’ve experienced three traumas in my life, and the lack of electricity is one of them.

Today, I was in the best mood to do laundry, wash my hair, write over the weekend, cook ahead for the weekend, clean, and wrap things up early so I could rest after a week full of ups and downs, but the power went out at 11 a.m. and all my plans fell apart.

When the power goes out in my house, I lose water because we use a pump to get water through the pipes; plus, my stove and all my appliances are electric, so I’m left without power, without water, and without food 😢. Just remembering it brings tears to my eyes.

I live in a coastal area with beaches, so you can imagine how hot it gets during that “peak” hour without air conditioning. And no, it’s not the air, it’s not the water, it’s not the food—it’s the feeling that YOUR LIFE IS BEING SHUT DOWN, plain and simple.

No one gives you answers, no one provides a timeline, and there are no solutions in the short, medium, or long term. NOTHING! They’re shutting down our lives, and no one is held accountable for it. Here, we all suffer the same hardships: true socialism.

Many will say they stay busy, others that they take the opportunity to talk with their neighbors, and some even form support groups or teams. I’d like to be like them someday, because none of that works for me. In my case, I cry—and I cry a lot. I cry out of helplessness, I cry out of sadness, out of anxiety and anguish. I don’t understand why this is happening to us—a rich, wealthy country with such a precarious system. And I refuse to see it as resilience, resignation, or a life opportunity; it’s simply inhuman.

Shutting down a country like this is a criminal act; many people are stuck in elevators, just as many are on the train, and some are cut off from the outside world; it can happen to them just like it does to me—we have to come up with extra money to buy food and water. If we add to that those in hospitals or prisons, those at the airport, making a payment, studying online, or, worse yet, working remotely and losing their jobs due to the lack of electricity. All this, just to mention a few examples.

I don’t know where this will lead, but I feel like I die a little more every time they indiscriminately cut off my power.

As I told you, there doesn’t seem to be any short-term plan. I do think there are many factors at play here: a lack of maintenance and expansion of the electrical grid to meet demand. But I believe our biggest challenge lies with the people who don’t pay their electricity bills and use it indiscriminately. These people need to be educated and made financially accountable so they can use energy responsibly, because they don’t pay and yet they’re the first to complain.

The day those situations change, we can talk about an efficient system that meets all of our needs.