Of course, as always, when I have some story to tell you, I don’t have any pictures to go with it. Such is life…when it is actually happening, you usually don’t have a camera on hand! Anyway, this story started with torrential rains last night at about 9pm; there was thunder and then the occasional yelp from a scared goosie. But, then there was one incredible clap of thunder…one big goosie yelp…one quick buzzy electrical noise…and then the power went out.
When we woke up this morning, we still had no electricity so Gnome went out to look at the transformer. He reported back,
“…the transformer is making a crrcrrrcrrr noise…”
Yes, very technical; I think he was trying to mimic a crackling noise.
Okay, so then we phoned the electricity company to tell them that we had no power and probably the transformer was hit by lightning. There was a bit of confusion over San Felipe, Toledo and San Felipe, Orange Walk (which is the opposite end of the country) and the colour of my house and the colour of my gate. At the end of the phone conversation, Gnome said that he was scared that the correct information didn’t get through and that they might be sending out an emergency team in Orange Walk looking for a green gate. So, at 8am, we decided to drive into town to report the fault directly to the Punta Gorda office.
When we got to the junction (Jacinto) to get onto the main road, there were a couple of parked cars and a whole load of people with bicycles. The river went up with the over-night rain and had flooded the junction road. As we approached, there was a guy blowing up an inflatable dinghy and numerous little children running about with multi-coloured rubber boots…but none dared to traverse the flooded road yet so we couldn’t tell how deep it was.
After about 15 minutes, a neighbour from San Felipe, driving a similar truck to ours, pitched up and parked behind us. He had a chat with us and he decided to wait too. Meanwhile, a few very brave motorists traversed the road but you could see that the water was still high up against the car bumpers. Gnome looked at me a few times and told me that he wasn’t going to risk it (and by the way…we will wait until our neighbour goes so that we can see if his truck makes it first…). Meanwhile, our neighbour was, I think, thinking the same thing and waiting for us to go first!!
Okay, after about an hour we ended up going first! And our neighbour followed with a chuckle and shouted, “let’s go!!”
The water was probably about 2 feet high and we tried to keep straight…it was actually quite scary because the water swayed our two tonne truck from side to side. I prayed to God to help us traverse safely and we finally reached the end of the road after about 100 yards (metres). Thank the Lord! We were both catching our breath…Phew…Made It!!…and at the end of the road, there was a woman waving us to get out of the way so that she could take a selfie at the flooded road! First time I have seen a selfie stick in this neck of the woods…sorry to say, they look really silly!! 😉
First stop in town was the office and there was a nice, helpful young man at the desk. He told me that my phone call did get through and that a team of guys had been dispatched to our residence. He said,
“…they should be there by now…let me just check…”
He came back to me and said with a smile,
“Oh, they are stuck at the junction right now with the flood and waiting for the water to go down…”
When I heard this, I started fretting over whether his guys could get across the flooded road. He looked at me and smiled again,
“…don’t worry about our guys!! you should be worried about whether you can get back home…”
He did have a point. I thanked him for his assistance and left worrying about whether we could get back home as it was starting to rain heavily again.
We did a few town things, stopped off for a quickie breakfast (not sure when we would eat again if we got stuck midway) and then headed back home quick smart. It was still raining!! On reaching the junction, it was surprisingly okay and the water was down to about a foot. From that we surmised that the electricity guys got through and had sorted out our electricity problem already.
On arriving home, the transformer was not making a funny noise any more and it appeared that the meter was back on. However, there was still no electricity! Gnome reckoned that since we assumed that the electricity guys had come already, all that was left was for us to replace the fuses in the fuse box. The only fuses we had were these ones…that had beeswax and honey smothered all over them…
Gnome proceeded to mess around and poke about in the fuse box. Meanwhile he told me to phone the electrician…I couldn’t find his phone number so I phoned a neighbour hoping to get the phone number; they said that they didn’t have it but would phone a friend to get the phone number of the brother of the electrician! I know…What Shenanigans!! Anyway, I had forgotten that this particular neighbour was a retired electrician (could have asked him for help) and he decided to drive by to see if we needed any help. He came by and spied Gnome poking about in the fuse box and reprimanded him immediately…soooo glad he did that! He said,
“…you can’t just poke about with live fuses…anyway, you don’t just take the fuses out with your hands…there are devices designed for that!!”
Gnome said “Sorry!!” immediately and said that he was ignorant to such devices existing.
At the same time, the electricity guys turned up and informed us that they didn’t come first thing because of the flood and did another job instead. They effortlessly replaced a fuse on the transformer and off they went…very, very quickly…it was nearly lunch-time (10 minutes to noon).
Alls well that ends well!! We have electricity again…but what a palaver!! Thanks every-one for helping out and making it into a funny story to tell!!
