My children continue their preparations for a potentially different reality. The next step in the process is learning how to bathe with cold water. Assuming the generator will power the water pump that carries the vital liquid up to the apartment, a slightly cold shower may be the only option for an extended period. My youngest son has been told that it is part of an ongoing warrior test. This keeps him sufficiently motivated.
We witnessed a bad omen today in terms of general order and safety. While driving down Avenida Vollmer and crossing through a green light, we just barely missed running into a motorcycle cop from Policia Metropolitana who decided to run a red light on his way to nowhere. If the authorities behave so callously as representatives of law and order, it is clear that they will not be in any position to maintain order when the usual social norms completely break down. With literally thousands of motorizados speeding through the streets each day, the only time my wife has ever been hit in her car, was by a member of the aforementioned PM, who was carelessly weaving through traffic and clipped her rear-view mirror. Of course no apology ensued, much less a rectification of the abuse.
Another aspect of Venezuelan culture that will be untouched by nation-wide electrical cuts is the multi-generational piñata party. With recycled cardboard, papier mache, and a colorfully wrapped stick, children will continue to be able to participate in the ritual of learning to grab one's unfair share of goodies. Family is strong in this nation because the child with the most family members helping to hoard the loot, marches off with the most full bag and gets the bragging rights for the next ten minutes until the cake is cut and the lights go out.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Saturday, January 16, 2010
Tips for Surviving the Energy Crisis
Now that the burden has been shifted to the areas outside of Caracas, we have some time to prepare a list of activities that can be enjoyed electricity free. Coming in at the top of the list: Make friends with a civil servant. Since they have been "ordered" by Official Gazette to go home at 1 p.m., the number of sports partners available for an afternoon activity has swelled. I personally took advantage of this on Friday afternoon to go to La Cinta and hit a bucket of golf balls. Remember, way back when, before computers, when physical activity was actually the preferred way to spend one's free time. This spring could be a good time to get back into a favorite sport.
Caracas is hands down one of the most naturally beautiful cities in the world. If you don't believe me, go spend a week in Lima, and I don't mean Miraflores. Due to the nature of the rough terrain and unending hills that have been inhabited by all walks of life, tremendous views are ubiquitos in this city. Last night my wife and I met up with some friends and talked until pre-dawn hours on their balcony enjoying the beauty of the skyline which may or may not be in jeopardy. If the apocalyptic power cuts come, that some are predicting, one can shift the viewing period to the early morning when the mist hovers above and often creeps well below the hill tops, until it burns off and reveals the undulating city below.
Those who will survive the changes most peacefully will be those who can embrace their ability to adapt and find a diurnal existence as robust and awe inspiring as the nocturnal one that is fading.
Caracas is hands down one of the most naturally beautiful cities in the world. If you don't believe me, go spend a week in Lima, and I don't mean Miraflores. Due to the nature of the rough terrain and unending hills that have been inhabited by all walks of life, tremendous views are ubiquitos in this city. Last night my wife and I met up with some friends and talked until pre-dawn hours on their balcony enjoying the beauty of the skyline which may or may not be in jeopardy. If the apocalyptic power cuts come, that some are predicting, one can shift the viewing period to the early morning when the mist hovers above and often creeps well below the hill tops, until it burns off and reveals the undulating city below.
Those who will survive the changes most peacefully will be those who can embrace their ability to adapt and find a diurnal existence as robust and awe inspiring as the nocturnal one that is fading.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
The Refrigerator Awakes
As it approached midnight and I slumbered in what was proclaimed to be an electronic graveyard, the announcement slithered out of the fiber optic like a spirit ascending from a tomb. The president was unhappy with the measures taken and they were to be undone immediately. The minister in charge joined the chorus of the unemployed and not a sound was to be heard as they stared into the zombie night.
After less than twenty-four hours, Nabokov’s fabled refrigerator had won. The people in the streets held placards and demanded their rights in vain. The refrigerator took on the comandante with a “rumble and shudder and crackle and pound” until capitulation was the only common ground.
With the stroke of a pen, the “dichlordisomethingmethane” had been banished from the valleys and hills of mystic Teresa’s haunting ground and as quickly as the exile occurred, open arms welcomed it back and an apology was heard. A government in denial that has spent 11 years falling off the wagon, admitted that it is powerless to the “wide-open white god,” and embraced a multi-step program to rectify its challenge to the looming dragon.
Life is again back to normal in little Venice’s capital while the people of the woodlands and snakes pay the price for our self-indulgent consumption. The narcissists on both sides of the spectrum have forged an alliance to make sure that when the bubble bursts the last bulb, in the city with Oranje disease, will flicker until it is seen “collapsing at last in the criminal night.”
After less than twenty-four hours, Nabokov’s fabled refrigerator had won. The people in the streets held placards and demanded their rights in vain. The refrigerator took on the comandante with a “rumble and shudder and crackle and pound” until capitulation was the only common ground.
With the stroke of a pen, the “dichlordisomethingmethane” had been banished from the valleys and hills of mystic Teresa’s haunting ground and as quickly as the exile occurred, open arms welcomed it back and an apology was heard. A government in denial that has spent 11 years falling off the wagon, admitted that it is powerless to the “wide-open white god,” and embraced a multi-step program to rectify its challenge to the looming dragon.
Life is again back to normal in little Venice’s capital while the people of the woodlands and snakes pay the price for our self-indulgent consumption. The narcissists on both sides of the spectrum have forged an alliance to make sure that when the bubble bursts the last bulb, in the city with Oranje disease, will flicker until it is seen “collapsing at last in the criminal night.”
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
Day One of Rolling Blackouts
Today a program of scheduled blackouts began in Caracas, Venezuela. We awoke to an annoucement yesterday that a schema had been devised to force the reduction of energy use in the country. Sectors of the city have been divided up into as many as five subsections and the chronogram posted on the Electricidad de Caracas website did not give complete information as to which subsector corresponds to where one lives. Each egg cooked and each shower taken was a friendly game of Russian roulette that left us hustling with more anticipation than normal.
I decided to take advantage of the fact that the electricity was still on as mid-day approached. I made a phone call to my father in California and we chatted about the kind of trivial subjects that keep a relationship alive. Just as we began to discuss an encounter that he had with Meb Keflezighi at San Diego's Mission Bay, the cut came abruptly and definitively. My wife lifted a fried egg off the stove and let the stored heat of the pan finish cooking the egg before feeding it to my son.
Now came the interesting part of the day. It was time to go around the apartment and catalogue what could and couldn't be done without the state owned electricity that normally keeps the household operating the way we have become accustomed to over the years.
The washing machine stopped during the soak cycle, the stove and refrigerator ceased their functions, the desktop computer was out of commission and we had no Internet for the laptop. Luckily the cell phone was charged and there was water in the water heater. A rare phenomena of foresight in this country left the main elevator working since a generator was purchased years ago with the realization that one cannot rely on electricity but must plan for its absence.
What then could be done? The kids could still go down to the park and play outdoors. Much has been written lately about unplugging kids from this techno obsessed culture of Wii, X-box and Nintendo. No progressive tense these days in Caracas. Rather than a mid-day church bell to delineate the passing of morning to day, the self proclaimed socialist government unplugged my children. My eldest son summoned the spirit of Elvis as he strategically moved his hips back and forth to propel the borrowed S-Board down the path of the common garden that we share with 38 families. My youngest son played in the park and fine tuned his acrobatic skills as he moved from station to station lifting and contorting his body.
I stayed upstairs and reclined into an oversized chair that caught the free sunlight that streamed through the balcony window. I proceeded to read a book that has spent a decade on my bookshelf collecting dust while the synapses in my brain slowly disconnected.
Thanks to some of the best bread that government regulated prices make affordable, I ate a simple ham sandwich produced energy free. This is a carnal sin in a country where warm mid-day meals are sacred, but without gas in the house to cook with, an old fashioned northern European sandwich had to suffice.
The most personally traumatic vice that I had to live without was my mid-day coffee. Without access to a gas camping stove, I had to forego the brown, brewed drink that helps me mark the day.
Of course, knowing the finite nature of the cut made a nap imperative. One can easily shift their patterns of productivity especially when step one involves snoozing the day away. A couple of hours later I was awakened by the hum of the electricity surging through the coils of the house which illuminated the setting as if the curtain had just been drawn on a scene which had not changed.
Following the blame game gets tiring in this country. It is like watching children cry after a piñata breaks open and they do not get a full bag of candy. Rarely does one hear gratitude expressed for the high quality of life that governs most days, most of the time.
The scarcity of electricity is the next phase in a situation where resources are diminishing. Water rationing has been going on for awhile now with some neighborhoods being hit harder than others. A cousin of mine was asked recently if she would prefer to have her Blackberry or a month of uninterrupted water service. She looked appalled at the audacity of the question. "The Blackberry of course."
When asked what she thought about the malls being forced to close at 9 p.m., she again looked offended. "When will I get to go to the discotheque?" she inquired, teetering on the verge of an existential cliff that looked frightening to leap over.
The energy cuts in Venezuela are a wake-up call for all of us. Corporations need to identify how consumers priortize their needs and wants and find viable solutions for a new reality. Why do refrigerators function in such a primitive way? How can we maintain perishable items without taxing the electrical grid 24 hours a day? I hope that someone, somewhere is considering this problem.
What is really important to us? The wisdom of a 15 year old girl is that being connected with friends takes priority over running water. As resources diminish and economic power is transferred to the next generation, we must learn to live with shifting priorities. Today, in Caracas, Venezuela, the future was born. It is a future where I will sit in a dark room drinking a precious cup of coffee brewed with the help of canned natural gas while my cousin uses her Blackberry to plan a rite of passage where she will dance under the alternating glare of strobe lights that illuminate the loneliness of the night. The youth can clearly see that the path to adulthood is realizing that we live within parameters. While we cannot have it all, there is much to be had.
I decided to take advantage of the fact that the electricity was still on as mid-day approached. I made a phone call to my father in California and we chatted about the kind of trivial subjects that keep a relationship alive. Just as we began to discuss an encounter that he had with Meb Keflezighi at San Diego's Mission Bay, the cut came abruptly and definitively. My wife lifted a fried egg off the stove and let the stored heat of the pan finish cooking the egg before feeding it to my son.
Now came the interesting part of the day. It was time to go around the apartment and catalogue what could and couldn't be done without the state owned electricity that normally keeps the household operating the way we have become accustomed to over the years.
The washing machine stopped during the soak cycle, the stove and refrigerator ceased their functions, the desktop computer was out of commission and we had no Internet for the laptop. Luckily the cell phone was charged and there was water in the water heater. A rare phenomena of foresight in this country left the main elevator working since a generator was purchased years ago with the realization that one cannot rely on electricity but must plan for its absence.
What then could be done? The kids could still go down to the park and play outdoors. Much has been written lately about unplugging kids from this techno obsessed culture of Wii, X-box and Nintendo. No progressive tense these days in Caracas. Rather than a mid-day church bell to delineate the passing of morning to day, the self proclaimed socialist government unplugged my children. My eldest son summoned the spirit of Elvis as he strategically moved his hips back and forth to propel the borrowed S-Board down the path of the common garden that we share with 38 families. My youngest son played in the park and fine tuned his acrobatic skills as he moved from station to station lifting and contorting his body.
I stayed upstairs and reclined into an oversized chair that caught the free sunlight that streamed through the balcony window. I proceeded to read a book that has spent a decade on my bookshelf collecting dust while the synapses in my brain slowly disconnected.
Thanks to some of the best bread that government regulated prices make affordable, I ate a simple ham sandwich produced energy free. This is a carnal sin in a country where warm mid-day meals are sacred, but without gas in the house to cook with, an old fashioned northern European sandwich had to suffice.
The most personally traumatic vice that I had to live without was my mid-day coffee. Without access to a gas camping stove, I had to forego the brown, brewed drink that helps me mark the day.
Of course, knowing the finite nature of the cut made a nap imperative. One can easily shift their patterns of productivity especially when step one involves snoozing the day away. A couple of hours later I was awakened by the hum of the electricity surging through the coils of the house which illuminated the setting as if the curtain had just been drawn on a scene which had not changed.
Following the blame game gets tiring in this country. It is like watching children cry after a piñata breaks open and they do not get a full bag of candy. Rarely does one hear gratitude expressed for the high quality of life that governs most days, most of the time.
The scarcity of electricity is the next phase in a situation where resources are diminishing. Water rationing has been going on for awhile now with some neighborhoods being hit harder than others. A cousin of mine was asked recently if she would prefer to have her Blackberry or a month of uninterrupted water service. She looked appalled at the audacity of the question. "The Blackberry of course."
When asked what she thought about the malls being forced to close at 9 p.m., she again looked offended. "When will I get to go to the discotheque?" she inquired, teetering on the verge of an existential cliff that looked frightening to leap over.
The energy cuts in Venezuela are a wake-up call for all of us. Corporations need to identify how consumers priortize their needs and wants and find viable solutions for a new reality. Why do refrigerators function in such a primitive way? How can we maintain perishable items without taxing the electrical grid 24 hours a day? I hope that someone, somewhere is considering this problem.
What is really important to us? The wisdom of a 15 year old girl is that being connected with friends takes priority over running water. As resources diminish and economic power is transferred to the next generation, we must learn to live with shifting priorities. Today, in Caracas, Venezuela, the future was born. It is a future where I will sit in a dark room drinking a precious cup of coffee brewed with the help of canned natural gas while my cousin uses her Blackberry to plan a rite of passage where she will dance under the alternating glare of strobe lights that illuminate the loneliness of the night. The youth can clearly see that the path to adulthood is realizing that we live within parameters. While we cannot have it all, there is much to be had.
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