"Our purest essence is light"
Anonymous
Light is now an integral part of human life, and when we don’t have that darn light, we can’t do a lot of things. This question caught my attention: Have you ever had to deal with a power outage? How does this affect your life, and how do you manage to cope with it? The thing is, this question even made me laugh because in my country, Venezuela, we’re sick and tired of this issue, and don’t think it’s something that happens once in a while: they cut off our power every single day, and it’s a shame just to say it.
In my country, we’re facing a critical power situation; they can cut off the electricity in the morning, afternoon, or evening. I say “cut off” because that’s how it’s set up the people who work at Corpoelec cut it off by sector. Some areas are more affected than others, and some states experience longer power outages. Usually, the outages last five hours, but recently there was a day when it lasted 10 hours, and that was absolutely frustrating.
We always rely on electricity to do chores at home, in the kitchen, in our studies, and most importantly for the water pump and the air conditioner or fan, depending on the situation, since temperatures at least in my state are extremely high. What’s most frustrating when the power goes out is the heat, and if we have work to do, we can’t work which has happened to me.
How do I manage to cope with it? Some days are good, and others not so much. On those days or during those hours when the power is out, I try to go about my usual activities, though it’s almost impossible—I feel like I’m only functioning at 30%. Another thing I try to do is use those moments to rest or read; time is a resource that can’t be wasted, and unfortunately, I sometimes lose it because the heat combined with the lack of light leads to exhaustion.
Another thing I do during these times is go out somewhere else we take a walk, maybe to the mall or to my father in law’s house, although lately the power goes out there at the same time. But we have to take it in stride, hoping that we’ll get through all this soon and that Venezuela will be a country where everything gets better and the power doesn’t go out like it does now. We’ll soon have a prosperous country.