The (Morning) the Lights Went Out in (Panama)

So, if you can't tell things in Panama are a little different from the States. There is a saying in Panama; you either get 20 things done in a day or you get nothing done in a day. 

So on Tuesday the 29th of June, we had just gotten to our house on the 26th, we woke up and tried to turn on the lights...nothing. So we went in and tried to turn on the water...nothing. So, I went in and grabbed the cell phone and called Ralph (a brother in our hall). When he answered I asked him, "how do I know if no power and water is from an outage or the bills not being paid?" He said that since most of the town was without power it is probably that and not a payment issue. 

Well it ends up that our house has a water storage tank so that if the water goes out we still have a supply of water. The only issue with this system is that it uses an electric water pump to supply the water to the house. So, when we lose electric at our place we also lose water. We do have a spigot outside that is in-line before the pump so it still has water (as long as the water supply is working) if we lose electricity. The only problem is that you have to carry buckets of water into the house for things like doing the dishes (yep no dishwashers) or flushing the toilet.

Well it ends up that here in Panama we lose electricity basically every day. The appliances saying zero when you get home shows that the power went out while you were gone. Usually, when the power is out it is only a few minutes at a time but this day it was out for hours. From about 2 in the morning to noon.

That night at the meeting we lost power twice, one time was during my part on the meeting. The brother on stage would just have to step over to where they could read by the emergency battery lights and continue until the electricity was restored.