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In the United States I can always take a warm bath, so I take hot showers that last a while without thinking about it twice. I let the water run while I brush my teeth all the while hearing the voice of my environmentally conscious roommate in the back of my head. Since I'm paying for it, I have gotten better about turning lights off, but I still expect there to be electricity whenever I want it.
I remember Dominican Republic when I was a child. When, at 8pm, people would run around screaming, "Se fue la luz!" This was especially scary for me when I was already making my bed at night and all of the lights would go out without any consideration for my fear of the dark.
This was always a mystery to me. I knew that in DR la luz se va*, but I never knew the cause. It was a supernatural phenomenon for me that I left unquestioned, kind of like El Cuco--the Dominican equivalent of the Boogie Man which your parents would threaten you with when you disobeyed them. "You better wash that plate or the Cuco is going to get you." "If you don't come here right now, the Cuco is going to get to you."
When I was a teenager I began to hear rumors that the lights went out frequently because DR owed a German power plant money. But this trip, I wanted to know for reals.
My uncle who is an engineer and worked for the government during the Balaguer years, supervising the construction of aqueducts and such, explained that the problem is a very basic supply and demand problem. As rural-urban migration occurs; i.e. more people move from the campos to the cities (which is evident when you drive past Villa Mella and see the hill filled with little houses made of tin that look like cardboard boxes), the demand for electricity and water and other energy sources increases. Dominican Republic has not been able to meet this demand. This alone doesn't factor in the tourists who come and consume the islands resources, creating an even greater demand. Many folks have found ways to access electricity and water for free and use it inefficiently, leaving the light on for hours because they're not paying for it. No incentive.
So while my aunts and uncles in Dominican Republic always have running water and electricity because they have inversores, others who do not have the money to purchase these additional energy supplies are often without the ability to flush the toilet or to take a shower or to read at night. So what do they do? Like good Dominicans they get around it. They save tubs and buckets of water and use them to shower; they flush the toilet with this same accumulated water supply, often leaving little jugs in the bathroom to scoop the water with and to pour on your hands for washing. As you can imagine, hand sanitizer is popular in the poorer areas.
"Pero tio, I asked, are you saying that the problem is a statistical one? Knowing that population growth in cities is occuring, why not build more aqueducts to increase water supply?"
-That's precisely the problem, m'ija. The projections are inaccurate and the problem is governmental.
Seems simple, right? So why is it still a problem? Why are there not more intitiatives to get the numbers straight?
Or, once again, is this particular explanation also akin to the rumors I heard about the origins of this phenomenon when I was a teen?
*Se fue la luz: The lights left.
La luz se va: The light goes.
I remember Dominican Republic when I was a child. When, at 8pm, people would run around screaming, "Se fue la luz!" This was especially scary for me when I was already making my bed at night and all of the lights would go out without any consideration for my fear of the dark.
This was always a mystery to me. I knew that in DR la luz se va*, but I never knew the cause. It was a supernatural phenomenon for me that I left unquestioned, kind of like El Cuco--the Dominican equivalent of the Boogie Man which your parents would threaten you with when you disobeyed them. "You better wash that plate or the Cuco is going to get you." "If you don't come here right now, the Cuco is going to get to you."
When I was a teenager I began to hear rumors that the lights went out frequently because DR owed a German power plant money. But this trip, I wanted to know for reals.
My uncle who is an engineer and worked for the government during the Balaguer years, supervising the construction of aqueducts and such, explained that the problem is a very basic supply and demand problem. As rural-urban migration occurs; i.e. more people move from the campos to the cities (which is evident when you drive past Villa Mella and see the hill filled with little houses made of tin that look like cardboard boxes), the demand for electricity and water and other energy sources increases. Dominican Republic has not been able to meet this demand. This alone doesn't factor in the tourists who come and consume the islands resources, creating an even greater demand. Many folks have found ways to access electricity and water for free and use it inefficiently, leaving the light on for hours because they're not paying for it. No incentive.
So while my aunts and uncles in Dominican Republic always have running water and electricity because they have inversores, others who do not have the money to purchase these additional energy supplies are often without the ability to flush the toilet or to take a shower or to read at night. So what do they do? Like good Dominicans they get around it. They save tubs and buckets of water and use them to shower; they flush the toilet with this same accumulated water supply, often leaving little jugs in the bathroom to scoop the water with and to pour on your hands for washing. As you can imagine, hand sanitizer is popular in the poorer areas.
"Pero tio, I asked, are you saying that the problem is a statistical one? Knowing that population growth in cities is occuring, why not build more aqueducts to increase water supply?"
-That's precisely the problem, m'ija. The projections are inaccurate and the problem is governmental.
Seems simple, right? So why is it still a problem? Why are there not more intitiatives to get the numbers straight?
Or, once again, is this particular explanation also akin to the rumors I heard about the origins of this phenomenon when I was a teen?
*Se fue la luz: The lights left.
La luz se va: The light goes.
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