Well we finally are back up and running with electricity. As I mentioned, the storm on the 2nd knocked out most of our zone. We barely had any water pressure for a couple days, and cell service was also not reaching us for part of the time. On top of that, typically around here the locals do protests blocking the main roads, so bus service was interrupted part of the time as well. The high point was on the 4th when my wife was coming back home by bus around 9pm, and the colectivo had to take a different route due to kids blocking the bus and throwing rocks at it. It went very round about and she had to walk about 24 blocks through a bit of a sketchy area with no cell service to let me know, in pitch black streets with no lights working. She showed up here at the house with another girl she had found crying and unable to get home. From our house the girl was able to call for a ride via our land line. We walked her a few blocks from the house where a family member picked her up. Anyway, the light came back for a day on Thursday and then went out again yesterday just for a few people on our block.
The funny ending was that somebody got tired of waiting and just called an electrician friend to switch a few houses over to a working phase. They just sort of passed the hat to pay for the poor guy who had to climb up two ladders tied together with rope and wire to move the cables around in a very crappy, rusted open junction box that he could barely reach above his head at the top of the pole. So as of a couple hours ago, no more spending AR$100+ per day to run the generator part-time. yay!
And that's how it's done here in the deep deep deep South!!
