Power Outages

I remember sitting in the living room many times working on homework when the lights went out.  Sometimes they flickered a few times first, giving us time to gather candles and matches.  We always had them ready because we never knew when we would need them.

Not having electricity also meant no hot showers.  It might mean no dinner, if you had an electric stove.  It happened to everyone, and was never an excuse for not having homework done.

Once they were out, we never knew when the lights would be back on.  Sometimes it was only a few minutes.  Other times we went to bed early and woke up to find them back on.  I learned the hard way to use a battery-opperated alarm clock!

Widowmakers

In Honduras (and I assume in other Latin American countries as well) hot water is not common.  Most of the time there is a hot water handle on a sink, but nothing comes out. 

The same goes for showers, unless you have an electric shower head, called a widowmaker.  A widowmaker heats up the water before it comes out.  Electricity is required to pump the water to the shower and to heat it.

Without electricity you can take a shower with water from an above-ground cistern.  A cistern is a large tank that catches rain water and holds it for later.  It usually sits above the house so that it can flow straight down inside without the use of electricity.  During the day the water is heated by the sun, making a shower warm, but not hot.  It's good to have a cistern when the electricity goes out, but once the cistern is dry, there is no more water until the next rain.