Sin Electricidad

Last week Ecuador entered into a little bit of a crisis. Right now the country is in a season where it's supposed to be getting a lot of rain, every day or every other day. But since I got here 3 months ago it has only rained about 5 times and is sunny almost every single day. The entire country depends completely on hydroelectricity...and since it hasn't rained there isn't enough electricity. So every day for the past couple weeks, every part of the country goes without electricity for 5 hours. Different parts of each city get shut down at different times each day.

At first I thought it was just a temporary thing, didn't think much about it. But after I started talking to people I realized that this changes a lot of things for a lot of people. They predict that the country will go without electricity 5 hours everyday for another month at least. At first all the impacts didn't register for me but now I see that everyday companies are losing 5 hours of business and it is definitely hurting the workers, their families and the economy. Kids in school are without lights or computers everyday, hindering their learning. Every town is without stoplights. Quito is a city of about 2 million and when everyone is trying to get to work or get home from work, traffic is a disaster (especially with so many impatient drivers here). At night, it is extremely dangerous. There have already been a lot of wrecks, one really bad one near my house that involved a bus and 6 cars. The government is having to pay more to have police officers out 24/7 directing traffic. There are a lot more robberies and other crimes because entire parts of the city are completely dark. Not only are houses and businesses without electricity, but also hospitals. Those that don't have their own generators are also shut down each day for 5 hours.

I've asked about other sources of electricity and what I've been told is that Columbia and Peru MAY be willing to sell energy to us but that it's too expensive and the government can't afford it. So then I asked about alternative sources from Ecuador itself, but apparently these alternative sources are expensive too and the government has not invested in developing them.

So...we wait for rain!