I was without power once for close to 2 weeks. In the United States. Granted, a combo of an unusually high number of tropical storms and very large shallow-rooted oak trees were to blame, but nonetheless it’s far longer then I’ve ever gone without power here. Yesterday was the recorded since I’ve moved into my own place – seventeen hours.

I guess there’s a tendency to get too used to what you have because seventeen hours was about sixteen and a half to many. I couldn’t even plug in my brand new Mercado Cuatro acquired $1.25 water heating device to heat up some shower water! I had to shower by candlelight! And cook with the headlamp on! And then to top it off the laptop died out halfway through an episode of Arrested Development. I mean what am I, camping?

In all seriousness though, it’s spoiled life we live here. Much of it thanks to the wonder that is Itaipu and the electricity that webs out from it across this country allowing 90% of all Paraguayan homes to be electrified. A life without lights is something on a whole other level. I’m seventeen years to late for that experience – Calle San Blas got connected in 1993. I wonder a lot what it would have been like to have been a volunteer back in those days. Buying stock in a candle company would probably have been wise. After last night – at my speed of reading – I’m guessing the current book I’m working on is about 31 candles long.

You don’t even need to go back that far though. I got my first Mp3 player in 2005 – a 512 megabyter. I would’ve needed to double my baggage weight with cd’s had not that whole iPod gambit turned out to be the phenomenon it’s become. I can’t honestly imagine bein… no, that’s not true. I can imagine being here without my own music to play – without my iPod and these incredible logitech speakers – but it’s a frightening exercise. I went three months, with only two or three short breaks, without hearing my music. There were other factors at play, but they were probably the toughest three so far.

“These are the days of miracle and wonder,” my speakers just relayed. Indeed. I heat water each night on my stove (or with that new death trap since there’s a propane shortage) and on the other side of my kitchen check emails and write this nonsense. I have internet in a house that barely (and technically doesn’t) have running water. The 230 plus Peace Corps volunteers in this country are all connected on a mobil phone network. And full advantage is taken of it. The folks we call our neighbors are no exception. From what I figure they live on a little over three bucks a day – the middle of the road ones. Yet they’ve all got cell phones. There’s no flushing toilets, but international communication is just one press of the thumb away. “This is the long distance call…”

“Leapfrog Technologies” is the buzz word I think. Folks in Cameroon with iPhones and Twitter who couldn’t ID a rotary phone – or even one of those “cordless” landlines that hang in all our parents kitchens – at a flea market. DVD’s being pawned on buses in Paraguay when the only VHS’s in this country are collecting dust in the volunteer lounge of the PC office in Asuncion. The boom boxes and CD players that blare reggaeton from my neighbor’s porches way too early in the morning are owned by families for whom a 45 would be a foreign as a frisbee.

I make an unfunny joke a lot when talking about things off in the future (like tonight and the 2016 Olympics in Brazil) and how I’m supposed to have a flying car by then – or at least a Marty McFly hoverboard. Perspective, especially with time and technology, gets easily lost. So while the chances of me jet-packing down to Rio for the games is pretty slim, for most of the world – even though they live on 2 bucks a day – the future is already here.

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