Se Fue La Luz

Written June 27th

This has come to be a very common term here in Honduras. When we were told to pack a headlamp, they were not kidding around. It was on the optional list of things to pack, but the testimonies from past volunteers spoke very highly of them. Last week when the power went out, I finally dug out the head lamp that my dad gave me before I left Alaska. I had just been using my flashlight before that, but to cook, two hands are better than one, and I didn’t really want to allow someone else to put my flashlight in their mouth - that is only for me to do.

So, I brought out my headlamp, and it turns out my host family had never seen one. They got a real kick out of it, and didn’t use it. They have their ways and we have ours. My host mom lit a candle, dripped some wax on the top of the Gerber baby food jar that has the salt in it, and then stuck the candle to the top of the Gerber jar. I was headed to take a shower with my LED light that has a little hanger on it, so I declined the use of another candle. I figured while getting in or out of the shower or drying off, I would probably blow it out, and then I would be stuck in the dark all wet.

The electricity here has a mind of its own. I asked my host mom about the reasoning behind the occasional power outages. They don’t seem to have any rime or reason behind them. I understand when it is poring down rain with thunder and lightning, but when it isn’t storming out, I don’t quite understand why we loose power. My host mom told me that it is actually turned off by the government. How she explained it, and from what I understood from how she explained it, was that only the home owners actually pay for electricity - the businesses don’t. So, a lot of power is consumed, and to balance out the usage, they turn the power out for a little while almost every afternoon/evening. This, however, really inconveniences the home owners who actually pay for electricity! The power usually goes out somewhere between 5 and 7 p.m., which, of course, is when everyone is trying to make dinner. These days, a good portion of the population have stoves, or at least a stove top that is electric, so when the power goes out, their dinner-making abilities are put on hold. However, even if people have an electric stove or burner, they also still have their fagon, a wood-burning cook stove. So, when the power goes out during dinner time, they have to take a break, get fire wood, light the fagon, and wait for it to get hot enough to cook on.

I like the fagons, but I wouldn’t want to cook on them. I have done my fair share of camping with camp-fire cooking, or cooking on top of a wood stove, and I’m not a huge fan. It just seems to take longer and it is a lot hotter. In Hondurras, it is already hot enough for my liking, so cooking next to a really hot fire-burning stove is not on my list of things I want to experience while living here. I wouldn’t mind if I was in a nice cool place and the fire actually warmed me up, but when my core temperature is already close to 100 degrees, I do not need any assistance by a stove to keep warm.

Cooking on fagons is really an art here, though. I see women do it, and I’m pretty impressed. They make their tortillas right on the cook surface. They make them so fast and just flip them with their hands. Twenty five tortillas only takes these Honduran women about five minutes. And cooking their eggs, beans and rice - they make it look so easy. The way they shuffle around the different pots and pans over the hot part of the cook-top - it is an art! It is just second nature to them, though. They learned from their moms when they were young, who learned from their mothers before them.