power of power

One week.  That is how long I lacked power.  In the states, if my house or apartment had lacked power for an entire week, I would have considered myself living under great hardship, but in Belize, one week is a miraculously short period of time to wait for a basic service.  But I did get electricity, in a most typically developing country fashion.

On Monday I dropped off my little signed piece of paper that showed that I had indeed had a a certified electrician hook up my single light and two outlets.  The lady at Belize Electricity Limited at first did not believe me, and accused me of trying to cheat the system, but after a call from the actual electrician, they decided to put my work order in their pile.  It should be just a couple of days, she told me.  Well, the rest of the week went by, no BEL.  In the meantime I lived a perfectly romantic life of candlelight cooking, dining, and reading.  Of course, I had to supplement with my headlamp, but for the most part I burned candles.

Friday came and I had almost given up hope of being able to flip my brand new light switch and get a response, when what should come cruising down the road but a BEL truck.  But wait, why didn't they stop?  They blew past my house at about 30 miles per hour, not even glancing at my disconnected meter wires. They weren't getting away this easy, and with my road being a one-way trip into the jungle, I knew that they would have to come back.  Sure enough, a little while later the truck appeared on the horizon and I flagged them down.  The driver stopped and listened to my plea about turning in my work order and living with no light.  Not so surprisingly, he hadn't heard a thing about it. It would only take him about 10 minutes to connect my house to power, but he didn't have any meters on him.  I smiled and thanked him and told him that I understood, and that I knew that he had a tough job.  Well, he said, maybe his partner that was reading meters would be able to help, and he would be right back.  5 minutes later they were back, connecting my lines without the meter and before I knew it they were on there way. They told me not to worry about telling BEL, that they would be back with a meter, but for now I had free electricity.  I guess the helpless woman act is universal.