A Blackout Story

So I’m watching the West Wing when the power suddenly goes out. It’s fine (blackouts are a common occurrence during the rainy season) until I realize that my house is the only one without power. Across the street, I can see several villagers huddled in my neighbor’s house watching a Thai television show. I tell my landlady that my power is out. She in turn tells her brother in law who then tells his father in law (my landlady’s father). My landlady’s mother (who I refer to as my grandmother) finds out and tells her cousin (who I also refer to as my grandmother). Pretty soon, I have my landlady, my grandfather, my uncle, and my two grandmothers either trying to ask me why my power is out or why they think my power is out. Of course, I do not understand much of what they are saying. I find my dictionary and with the help of my flashlight I look for the word “fuse”.

“Ah! Fui!” says grandfather and he takes me behind the house right by the cows. “Ni” he points to what I imagine is the fuse box. Only it looks less like a fuse box than it does a mini power station: a whole cluster of wires, more than a few switches, and more wires. He starts poking around and, not finding any solution, he takes me to another corner, behind the tractor. Again, I see another power station. There is a cluster of hay, and wood, and scrap metal that he has to navigate through as he pokes around. Worried that my grandfather might electrocute himself, I browse through the dictionary and find the word for electrician. “Mi chang fai fa mai?” I ask him.

“Kaw ja ma” grandfather answers, “he is coming.”

I have no idea how or when my grandfather got to contact him but stranger things have happened in Thailand. “Muaray?” I ask “when?”

“Mai nenon” he answers, "Not sure."

Such an answer in Thailand can pretty much mean the electrician is coming sometime in the next 72 hours.

Soon more villagers come. My neighbor from across the street who is pretty drunk (it is 8:30 PM after all—which means he has been drinking for roughly 5 hours) starts poking around the power stations; pulling on wires and flicking switches. I worry for him too. After several attempts he looks at me and offers a shrug.

Grandmother number one comes aside and, in a whisper almost, asks “Non ti ban dai mai?" She wants me to sleep in their house.

At this point, with the odds of me getting my power back getting slimmer with every poke and flicker of the switches, I start entertaining the idea of sleeping in my hammock. But before I can express this to grandmother, I see that my landlady is already shooing her kids away from the living room and sweeping her floor. They offer me a mosquito net. How can I refuse?

I tell them that I’ll just grab a quick shower—since the power of the village is still on, I know that I at least have running water at home. While my only source of light is my flashlight, there is enough light for me to notice little shadows running around the drain area. I shine the light and see a whole family of cockroaches running out of and around the drain. I grab a mop close by and with mop in one hand and the flashlight in the other (and the shower head between my neck and shoulders), I start attacking, hurting some and killing a few. The survivors run back inside the drain. I continue with my shower paying careful attention to whatever else might decide to come out of the drain (I’ve had centipedes and huge lizards in the past). The rest of the shower however, is uneventful.

I bring a small foldable mattress and my electric fan to my neighbors place. I notice my sleeping area has several spiders around but I am too tired to bother doing anything. I crawl under the collapsible mosquito net they have provided for me and attempt to take my fan inside. My fan is a little too big for the collapsible net they give me and I’m left with two choices: sleep in the heat or take my fan under the net and risk spiders crawling under the gap between the net and the floor. I decide to take my chances with the spiders.

I swat a few mosquitoes (they have penetrated the net), flick a few bugs (they have crawled under) and shoo a cat away (I have no idea where she came from) before I drift to sleep—thankful for the little lull in my posh corps existence.