Tough Time In Manaus: The Dry Season Mario Cohn-Haft - November 4, 1997 |
As you can imagine, with the electricity cuts, all other services suffer too. Many stores,
offices, suppliers and such only function when the electricity is on, which may be a small
proportion of their normal working day and smaller still proportion of the times when
you can actually use them. Electronic equipment all over town burns out when the
energy comes back on with a spike of excess, and a few houses in our neighborhood
have burned down because of this. The phone works even when the lights go out, but
the service has suffered all sorts of setbacks. When I have electricity at home and can
contact the INPA computer by modem for email, often the system there is without
energy and vice versa.
Feels like a perfect time to get out of town and into the woods. Right? However, even if I
didnt have a number of writing project deadlines to meet (impossible given the number
of functional hours available per day), getting to the field wouldnt be so
straightforward. As Ive mentioned, most boat traffic is either stopped or grinding to a
halt. A smaller number of places are accessible by plane, but much of the time the air is
too smoky to land. That leaves car, which only goes to a few spots close by and requires
an element of courage verging on lunacy. So its a catch-22. I never thought Id be so
eager for the start of the rainy season.
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