The Philippine "Brown Out"

It goes like this....

You are finishing the graphics for your PowerPoint presentation about 10 am on a Tuesday morning and all of a sudden, you are not online any more.  You double check by turning on the electric fan (which does not turn on), and yes, it is a brown out - something I'd never heard of before arriving here in the Philippines.  All of the electricity just suddenly dies, but it is not a black out, because only some neighborhoods have lost power.   It, as many things, are just accepted here as a fact of life and accommodated.

Whilst training in Olongapo, power blinked out early on a Saturday, after one of the old power poles basically split in half during high winds, and again when Typhoon Juan blew through - then, it seemed off more than it was on (typhoons are really scary at night when you can't see anything but can only hear the wind ripping trees apart and things crashing onto a tin roof - a cacophony of torrential auditory stimulation that wears you out so that you awaken exhausted).  But those were the freaky brown outs - the typical brown out averages once a week - and lasts from 30 minutes to 6 hours.  The first week here on Palawan, I attended a training for "Teaching Character in the School" which was attended by perhaps 100 people (and given all in Tagalog...but that's another story).  It was a slick, 6 hour presentation....rather, it would have been, but at 8:30am, the brown out hit...and lasted until 3pm.   The presenter didn't flinch too much - just changed his presentation a bit to be hands-on - and he was a born-again pastor and used to evangelism.

   So, everyone here expects such erratic behavior (from electricity as well as most everything else) - teachers and business people have a backup plan for all presentations requiring electricity...which is really difficult if you want to show videos on Autism and autistic behaviors.  Practicing my first presentation the day before I gave it - yep, the electricity went off for 3 hours.   Everyone assured me that the brown out occurred then so that I would not experience it on the following day - and they all assured me that they would also pray for no brownout - something worked!

The worst is when it is hot - sometimes in the middle of the night - when the fan just stops and you start sweating under your mosquito net.  I remember one night in Olongapo that Tess and I just got up and talked for a long time in front of the door...although I had so many mosquito bites that I'm not sure which was worse - sweating it out at 1am, or having a little breeze along with Anopheles.

The first week of the New Year here, we had 5 brown outs on 5 consecutive days and I wondered if the electric company was giving us a taste of what was to come.  But, things didn't escalate - except for one day when we had three separate brown outs for a few hours each.  On March 26th, Mario told me to hurry up and finish my dinner - I was baffled....until at 8:30pm, Puerto Princesa City made sure that all of its citizens celebrated Earth Hour together - they just flipped the switch and at precisely 8:30pm, all electricity ceased.  It was my favorite brown out by far.  The night sky was incredible with no lights to hinder viewing.  Sounds of televisions, radios and karaoke vanished and it was quiet - the quiet you could imagine that our ancestors of long ago knew well. A sense of primeval times...especially when the cockroaches skittered across the road - obviously confused by the instant darkness.  I ventured not too far from the house because it was just too dark to see without stumbling...but the memory of those skies will remain with me.