Lights Out

Take a city like Boston. For starters, multiply the danger of walking in a city like that by a hundred. Take away the traffic and crosswalk lights. Turn off all the lights in every building while you're at it.

That's been my evening experience in Quito a couple nights per week since the entire country realized it was in an energy crisis. The country gets the majority of its energy from hydroelectric plants. It hasn't rained. Someone needs to do the rain dance, ASAP. Peru and Colombia are potentially willing to sell energy, but political tensions seems to be preventing a definite deal. Either way, these "apagones" that occur daily in different sections of Quito for five hours at a time, as well as in all other regions of the country, could last until March.

What's worse, the economy isn't looking all that good either. Unemployment/desperation for resources + dark, abandoned streets = bad news for your average pedestrian carrying anything of value. Also, businesses are being forced to slow down or close early, clubs can now only be open till 1am on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (--> loss of profit from alcohol sales). It's bad. It's not as bad right now as it is in Venezuela, where neither light nor water are to be found.

Ojala que llueva, ojala que llueva. A country shouldn't face problems such as these, especially, potentially in the long term. We need solutions, and we need them fast.