Working during major disruptions

Ecuador is always a bit of an adventure.

We have had national strikes blocking the entire country, political unrest, terrorism from organized crime, and a pandemic in the past years.

This year, we had major forest fires (shutting down the city for two entire days), then torrential rains and floods, and -back since a few months- major power cuts.

We have been having power cuts that range between a few hours all the way down to 17 hours on a day. Most days, 10 hours of power cuts are the norm.

At university, we are working with diesel generators. When the power goes off, everything shuts down, then resumes within a few minutes. The internet takes longer to restart – usually about 10 minutes. When the power goes down, we often also lose cellphone signal – so rejoining a call from my phone is often not an option. At home, we have installed batteries that charge on the net when we have power and that provide us with some basic things (internet, light – but only very few of the kitchen appliances).

All in all, getting the power cuts is annoying – I have been surprised by the powercuts many times as I was working on my writing in full concentration. Getting a power cut while on a Zoom/Teams call is bad. I also cannot really plan, as the power cuts are usually announced only for a few days, and then just the evening before.

Anyway, we try to make the best of it, and see what we can do to keep a certain level of normality in these times. And of course, we are hoping for the rain we need to fill the dams of the hydropower plants so we can get energy supply again…