With the continuing rotating brownouts in the country, the all-day-and-night rain of Wednesday was truly a welcome sight. Never had I felt so glad to see the skies so dark and gloomy than this day. Looking out from our balcony, I could see and feel the sigh of relief from around the garden. It was as if the grass and plants were in a refreshing feast even for just a short while.
I know it will take more than a 24-hour episode of rain to solve the current power crisis but I know that if we continue to pray for the rainy season to come sooner, everything will go back to normal. I'm just glad for this brief respite from the harsh effects of the El Niño.
After getting used to the routine of 3-hour brownouts for more than a week now, we were hit today with a whopping 8-hour power outage. Power was cut off at 9:00 am and came back at 5:00 pm. When the power outage was nearing 4 hours, I decided to call the local power company to ask why the brownout exceeded the usual 3 hours. The person on the other line responded that they didn't have any hand on the power interruption and pointed to NAPOCOR as the culprit. They couldn't say how long it would last as they claimed it was NAPOCOR's call.
And so there was nothing else we could do but WAIT...
In these times of technology and modernization, power interruption is certainly thought of as going back into the "Dark Ages". It is irritating and certainly very inconvenient but after experiencing a whole daytime of power outage, there are several good things that the power crisis has brought about:
forced savings on electricity (a daily brownout of 3 hours can be converted to about 1/8th savings from the usual power consumption)
renewed appreciation for basic conveniences like water and electricity (many countries are not even as fortunate as us to have these utilities on hand)
you're forced to think up of creative ways to pass the time (board games and community singing make a comeback)
there's a forced abstinence from the internet (read: facebook) and television which gives family members more opportunity to bond
hours of no power mean more time for people to TALK to each other...that is, to engage in lively and focused conversations
When the power crisis is looked at in this way, it doesn't feel a big a burden as it originally was...I guess we just have to look at the silver lining in every bad event.
With the continuing rotating brownouts in the country, the all-day-and-night rain of Wednesday was truly a welcome sight. Never had I felt so glad to see the skies so dark and gloomy than this day. Looking out from our balcony, I could see and feel the sigh of relief from around the garden. It was as if the grass and plants were in a refreshing feast even for just a short while.
