“¡¡La lú!! ¡¡La lú!!”

“Before the light came, life here was miserable.” – Carlos, a neighbor and good friend.

Electric power, fueled by a gas source, began illuminating the city across the bay from my community near the end of the 19^th century, replacing the alligator-oil torches that previously provided light during the hours between intervals of daylight. In the first half of the 20^th century the township where I live housed a government medical facility; this facility had a large generator and provided its government buildings as well as a few houses with electrical power. When the facility was closed down around 1950, the island – in the shadow of the lights across the bay – was again enveloped in darkness, broken only by the whirring of gas-powered generators owned by some of the houses and stores. In the dark, neighbors, friends, and family were recognized by a particular gait or an individual outline reflected by moonlight.

Some local and national planning and prodding finally resulted in putting in an underwater electric cable, lighting up the island in 1998 with raucous celebrations among the local populations. (In a community where festivities and parties are regular activities in a normal week, it must have been quite the event.)

1998! I find that figure mind boggling, even for a country like Colombia. Like many other Americans of my generation, I grew up watching tv regularly, listening to music on the local radio stations, and playing games on early generation Macintosh computers. My host “parents”, not too much older than me (hence the quotes), have spent more than half their lives living without electricity. Elderly neighbors, having lived the bulk of their lives in relative quiet, now suffer through late nights from speakers blaring the latest champeta or vallenato music out in the streets with no regard for others’ sleeping needs.

"Sopa de fideos" - Noodle soup, as a friend called it.

Although there is electricity here on the island, it is by no means as reliable or well-planned as it in the city. Power lines, supported by home-made wooden poles, are spliced to provide electricity to newer houses, over time resulting in a precarious jumble of wires – “noodle soup” in the words of one of my students.  It is not uncommon for power to go out for no apparent reason. And when it goes out, there’s no way to tell if it will be out for 20 minutes or several days. Seasonal winds during December and January, whipping up sand, might knock over a pole and cut power. During the hot, wet seasons of the year, rain downpours frequently cut out electricity, resulting in room temperature beverages with no ice and stagnant, sweat-drenched nights when the fan blades can’t spin. (On such nights my host family often takes the mattresses from their room and sleeps on the floor of the living room with all doors and windows open, grateful for any slight breeze that momentarily passes through and stirs the thick air in the room.) Other times, with nothing to indicate any potential issues with transmitting electricity, the power will simply go out or go so low that it can only weakly power the light above the front door and nothing else. Candles and flashlights provide basic illumination and smoldering egg cartons or coils of Katori repellant keep the mosquitoes away. Night classes are cancelled since teaching in the dark isn’t much of an option.

Power lines

They're growing!

 Frustrated with the irregularity of electricity and the discomfort that can come from a few days without refrigeration, the breeze of fans, cold beverages, and the warm hum of the television, some of the better-off households have bought gas-powered generators to use during the nights when the power goes out. With gas costing around US$5.75 per gallon ($10.000 Colombian pesos) and a gallon powering a small generator for 6-7 hours, sometimes you just don’t have the cash to fill the tank. 

C'mon baby! Let's power up the fridge and get the fans cranking!

Food gets taken out of the fridge and placed in a Styrofoam cooler with any ice you have available at the moment and then cooked using the gas-powered stove, for those who can afford the cost of the gas-tanks. Otherwise dinner is cooked in the backyard, set on rocks or bricks and heated with firewood, smoke wafting through town. Or, if it’s raining and you can’t cook in the backyard, that might be a meal you’re missing that day. Instead of the cold, fresh-blended fruit juice standard with dinner, you get hot, sugary juice from a packet or walk down the street looking for a kind neighbor or family member that has a generator going and will let you plug in your blender for a minute or two. Beer – if it’s a weekend and the power has been out for a few days – is cooled on blocks of ice shipped in from the city, covered in saw dust for insulation and packed in bags to make the trip.

The return of power is almost always a joyous occasion. The kids in my neighborhood seem to be the ones that always notice first, that a tv comes back on or a lightpost has a bulb glowing. (“¡¡La lú!! ¡¡La lú!!” / “The light! The light!” they yell.) Lights come back on, candles snuffed out, televisions turned on, food put back in the fridge. Through the return of the noise, you can almost perceive a collective sigh, a breath of relief that the power is back on, mixed with the anxiety of wondering when it will go out next, and counting your blessings that – at least tonight – you might have some ice-cold juice with your dinner.