Total Blackout
April 28th
On April 28th at 12:30 p.m. my bathroom light suddenly turned off, but I didn’t think twice about it, as it is easy to overload the circuit. With an easy reset of the router the problem is solved.
But then my phone had no cell service and I heard commotion in the street below me. This power outage was different. I made my way out into the street I found the employees of the stores, dentist and pharmacy all outside. The whole town lost power. A man said it was all of Spain, but I thought he was joking. But it wasn’t just my town, it was all of Spain, Portugal and even some of Southern France. How could a whole country lose all power!
Most people didn’t know what to do from the start or when it would be fixed. But like any normal day I headed down to the plaza and joined a handful of locals who had the same idea. Soon it was siesta, kids got out of school and offices closed. With no power everyone had the rest of the day off. The only stores that were still open were the grocery stores that were operating on a backup generator. After the initial confusion, the blackout did little to affect the people of La Solana. The town doesn’t have any traffic lights, no trains and I did not hear of anyone being stuck in an elevator. The only difference was people buying candles and batteries, to prepare for a dark night. After siesta, children flocked to the street searching for their friends or hanging out with their family on the balconies. People sat outside their houses listening to their car radio to hear what else was going on in the world and if there was any prediction on when the power would be back on.
I set out to see what my friend was up to and after screaming her name outside the house with no luck, I took to scaling her wall to bang on her window. That finally got her attention. We people watched from her balcony until we waved down a local friend who invited us over for dinner. They have a “La brasa,” a fire is created in the chimney, once the wood is burned down and all that are left are pipping hot coals, meat is placed on a grate that closes over both sides, and put over the coals. For dinner we put out all the candles that we could find, popped open some radlers and turned on the Walkman to listen to the news. As the chicken grilled over the hot coals, we caught up with what was going on in the rest of the world through the walkman. Since La Solana was tucked away in its own bubble and we were under the glow of candles and the light of the fire, I didn’t realize how many problems that the power outage could cause. People were stuck in elevators, on the metro or in trains, with no traffic lights the traffic was horrible and no one could make any purchases unless they had cash.
After enjoying our meal, we headed back to our apartment. Once I stepped outside I was mesmerized by the brightness of the stars, that I never noticed. But with all the lights out the stars dazzled above. I could even recognize a constellation or two. This blackout day is still a mystery and I will never be able to wrap my head around how one country could lose all of its power. But in La Solana’s the blackout was just one extra long siesta, where the town enjoyed eachother company. It wasn’t till four in the morning when my phone started to buzz from my family wondering why they hadn’t heard from me all day, that was the end of the blackout.
