Well, it's been an intersting few days; 3 days in total without power. The first night was kind of fun and exciting. At first, we were the only ones without power, as all our neighbors still had lights. We spent the candle-lit evening playing cards and listening to music on a battery operated mini speaker. We couldn't tell why we lost power, as there was no storm that night. But the next evening, around 5 pm, the entire city lost power. And we found out later that the entire country was actually without power that night.
Anyway, that was Thursday, our meeting night. People continued to show up to the kingdom hall as meeting time approached, as dark as it was, so we decided to get dressed too and go down to see what was going on. As we were all wondering around the dark kingdom hall, we were wondering if we'd have meeting or if it would be cancelled. I predicted that the power would come back on just before 7:00 when meeting starts ('cause that's the way Jehovah works usually)...and that's what happened. At exactly 6:55, power came back on to the town (although our apartment was still without) and we began meeting as usual. But it was short lived. A quarter way through the meeting, while the #2 talk was being introduced, everything went black again. The school overseer continued on as usual using a flashlight he pulled from his pocket, and the talk began in the dark, without microphones.
I didn't hear a word of the talk, as so many people were talking and rummaging through bags looking for light sources. The brothers immediately began passing out long candles, that they had poked through a service time sheet to catch the dripping wax. Each row got two. By the end of the #2 talk, the brothers had ran and got a battery operated flood light to shine on the speaker on stage and everyone had their own candles. And so the meeting continued. Everything was done as usual, all the same parts and participation. But as it was still so dark in the auditorium, the brother giving the part out of the kingdom ministry asked that people stand up instead of raise their hands, so he could see them. The half time song was quite interesting, as no one can carry a tune anyway even with accompanying music, let alone without it. But we admired the will to continue as normal no matter what the circumstances. Josue and Jania had an interview part towards the end on the dark stage. Lucky!!! I've always hoped that something like that would happen to me when I have a part!! The less people have to see and hear, the better.
Later that night, most of the power came back on, except for us of course, our apartment still had none. The next day, we walked to the Electric company and inquired about why we were the only ones to not have power still. Turns out we were a day late paying our bill the week before, and there is no time frame to restoring power to late payers. Perfect... However, they promised to get it back on that afternoon. We hoped, but didn't expect this t0 actually happen. Here in Ecuador, time is an abstract idea that no none really understands. Anyway, that night, the third night without power, we realized that all of the food we had just bought for the month was all but ruined. We ended up having to throw away everything that had now been warm for almost 24 hours. That hurt... At least we got to put some of the more expensive meats in a friend's freezer, as they had power most of the time.
We had hopes of the lights coming back on when we saw some flickering activity that eveing. But just then, something happened that made us both jump and scream! It had been a calm, warm night without rain, when all of a sudden, a flash of bright light flooded our house and half a second later (not even) the sound of thunder cracked over our house, like a bomb. Within the same second, the entire city went black again, as if on perfect cue. What does the time between lightning and thunder mean again?!?!
So our hopes for restored power were once again lost. We tried to occupy ourselves by studying, knitting, and reading by candle light some more, but that gets boring after a few days. We couldn't watch tv, movies, listen to music, use the computer, use any appliance at all, wash clothes, our phones were dead, etc... At least we could still cook and shower, as these run on gas. Of course, the water doesn't get very hot, and most cooking, we found, uses some kind of electrical appliance... Well, we ended up going to see a movie at the theater, which luckily did still have power. It was a super corney sci fi, called The Day the Earth Stood Still, or something like that. It was pretty lame, but better than sitting at home, staring at each other's silhouettes and attempting to figure out puppet shadows, which is really really hard.
That same day, I lost my cell phone in a taxi. We immediately found the taxi driver, but he had already hidden the phone and made up some story about having a couple "rebelious looking" young guys in his car right after us. That was hard to believe, especially because at first, he pretended not to recognize us. Anyway, that is really terrible, as cell phones are sooooo expensive here and all my info and contacts were in that phone. poo....
Then finally to end this story, this morning we woke up to heavy rain, a VERY rare occurance in the morning here. So we were unable to go out in service. We called the electric company once more, and finally I guess we were annoying them enough, so our power was finally restored at about 11:00am. Finally! So that has been our interesting weekend so far. I can tell you we will never pay our light bill late every again. Lesson learned.
Tomorrow, we have our Pioneer meeting with the elders and a big lunch afterwards. Looking forward to that. So, what's new with you? Let us know, either by comment or email. Love to hear from you. TTFN :)
Anyway, that was Thursday, our meeting night. People continued to show up to the kingdom hall as meeting time approached, as dark as it was, so we decided to get dressed too and go down to see what was going on. As we were all wondering around the dark kingdom hall, we were wondering if we'd have meeting or if it would be cancelled. I predicted that the power would come back on just before 7:00 when meeting starts ('cause that's the way Jehovah works usually)...and that's what happened. At exactly 6:55, power came back on to the town (although our apartment was still without) and we began meeting as usual. But it was short lived. A quarter way through the meeting, while the #2 talk was being introduced, everything went black again. The school overseer continued on as usual using a flashlight he pulled from his pocket, and the talk began in the dark, without microphones.
I didn't hear a word of the talk, as so many people were talking and rummaging through bags looking for light sources. The brothers immediately began passing out long candles, that they had poked through a service time sheet to catch the dripping wax. Each row got two. By the end of the #2 talk, the brothers had ran and got a battery operated flood light to shine on the speaker on stage and everyone had their own candles. And so the meeting continued. Everything was done as usual, all the same parts and participation. But as it was still so dark in the auditorium, the brother giving the part out of the kingdom ministry asked that people stand up instead of raise their hands, so he could see them. The half time song was quite interesting, as no one can carry a tune anyway even with accompanying music, let alone without it. But we admired the will to continue as normal no matter what the circumstances. Josue and Jania had an interview part towards the end on the dark stage. Lucky!!! I've always hoped that something like that would happen to me when I have a part!! The less people have to see and hear, the better.
Later that night, most of the power came back on, except for us of course, our apartment still had none. The next day, we walked to the Electric company and inquired about why we were the only ones to not have power still. Turns out we were a day late paying our bill the week before, and there is no time frame to restoring power to late payers. Perfect... However, they promised to get it back on that afternoon. We hoped, but didn't expect this t0 actually happen. Here in Ecuador, time is an abstract idea that no none really understands. Anyway, that night, the third night without power, we realized that all of the food we had just bought for the month was all but ruined. We ended up having to throw away everything that had now been warm for almost 24 hours. That hurt... At least we got to put some of the more expensive meats in a friend's freezer, as they had power most of the time.
We had hopes of the lights coming back on when we saw some flickering activity that eveing. But just then, something happened that made us both jump and scream! It had been a calm, warm night without rain, when all of a sudden, a flash of bright light flooded our house and half a second later (not even) the sound of thunder cracked over our house, like a bomb. Within the same second, the entire city went black again, as if on perfect cue. What does the time between lightning and thunder mean again?!?!
So our hopes for restored power were once again lost. We tried to occupy ourselves by studying, knitting, and reading by candle light some more, but that gets boring after a few days. We couldn't watch tv, movies, listen to music, use the computer, use any appliance at all, wash clothes, our phones were dead, etc... At least we could still cook and shower, as these run on gas. Of course, the water doesn't get very hot, and most cooking, we found, uses some kind of electrical appliance... Well, we ended up going to see a movie at the theater, which luckily did still have power. It was a super corney sci fi, called The Day the Earth Stood Still, or something like that. It was pretty lame, but better than sitting at home, staring at each other's silhouettes and attempting to figure out puppet shadows, which is really really hard.
That same day, I lost my cell phone in a taxi. We immediately found the taxi driver, but he had already hidden the phone and made up some story about having a couple "rebelious looking" young guys in his car right after us. That was hard to believe, especially because at first, he pretended not to recognize us. Anyway, that is really terrible, as cell phones are sooooo expensive here and all my info and contacts were in that phone. poo....
Then finally to end this story, this morning we woke up to heavy rain, a VERY rare occurance in the morning here. So we were unable to go out in service. We called the electric company once more, and finally I guess we were annoying them enough, so our power was finally restored at about 11:00am. Finally! So that has been our interesting weekend so far. I can tell you we will never pay our light bill late every again. Lesson learned.
Tomorrow, we have our Pioneer meeting with the elders and a big lunch afterwards. Looking forward to that. So, what's new with you? Let us know, either by comment or email. Love to hear from you. TTFN :)
Oh, since this blog has no pictures to peruse, here are a few older ones from when my mom was here, random pics of people and places...
Below, we are at El Panecillo, The Statue of Virgen Mary with a snake coiled around her feet, slightly misapplying Gen 3:15. You can climb up the statue to see a 360 degree view of Quito and the surrounding mountains.
Below, we are at El Panecillo, The Statue of Virgen Mary with a snake coiled around her feet, slightly misapplying Gen 3:15. You can climb up the statue to see a 360 degree view of Quito and the surrounding mountains.
Random views from walking around Quito...
5 comments:
Ouch!! So sorry about the cell phone! Shame on that greedy driver!
We had several power outages when the snow was here, not real long, but our well uses an electric pump and the pellet stove runs on electricity, so it's not a good thing for us to lose power either. The first thing we do is put the hot water from the tap in thermos containers so we can make baby bottles. We played Scrabble and Scattergories by candle light. Which is overrated, BTW. Not the games, candle light. How did anyone ever get anything done with it?
And sorry you lost most of your food, that had to hurt.
I'm so sorry to hear about the lack of power. But love that meeting continued as normal. I've always secretly hoped that would happen here someday and we would have meeting in the dark :) and great use of the service time sheets. The cell phone thing also is very upsetting, would a cell phone from here do you any good? I have several "old" models laying around. They are still decent phones. Lastly the photo with all the different color stairs is amazing, whoever took that NICE JOB! very cool, I downloaded it and applied it as background on computer. Okay ta ta for now... Keep on Keeping on :)
~ Don
The only good thing I can tell you is it is all behind you now!! Life has a way of giving us experiences, some good some not so good. Maybe this week will be better. I send a few up for you guys. We will have to think of more interesting things to do in the dark as I understand power outages happen there quite often. Once in 6 months isn't so bad. We were very blessed during the bad storms not a day without power. Good thing or I would have froze to death. Here's hoping you have a great, sunny, warm, power-filled next week and month. Love ya
Auntie
What a weird coincidence that the power went out for the WHOLE COUNTRY at the same time that yours went out for the late bill. Awesome. And my power went crazy while I was reading your blog! Nothing turned off but the microwave started beeping for no reason and my music got really really loud when I didn't turn it up. Good thing I don't believe in haunted houses :)
It's snowing! Not for long though, by noon the temp will be warming up. But I sure love it while it lasts.
Love being featured in your blog, too. I can pretend I'm still there, sharing fun times with you both. btw Don - thanks, I took that picture, copyright fees won't extend to you, my friend!
Really love your new feature - 'Meet the Friends'. Since I have, I know that everyone would love them as I do.
chau
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