No-Electricity Week

It is time for me to talk about the eventful "No-Electricity Week"

It all happened on the afternoon of February 5th. I came home from work and took a shower. When I was in the washroom I went to turn on the light, and as I did I saw that the light switch was taped. My thoughts were "what the hell?" but I simply peeled away the tape and turned on the light. When I came out there was Mike and Rebecca, who were working on cleaning up the old dresser someone donated from the hospital (typical Katimavik fashion). Mike saw the light on and said, "we are not allowed to use the light". I immediately gave him an odd look and ask "What do you mean I can't use the light?" Rebecca immediately said, "Oh you haven't heard? Emilie and a bunch of other people agreed that there will be no electricity in this house for one week to save energy and make us think about the people who cannot afford electricity". All good causes, but how come no one told me anything about this???? In total disbelief I replied, "Well I am not formally informed by Emilie, so until I do I will savour the last moments of electricity". And the first thing I did when I went into my room was to frantically dig for my mini flashlight, which disappeared (what a surprise).

That night as we have dinner by the candle light, Emilie did her usual dinner thanks, and then turned to Charles and said "I believe you have an announcement?" Charles immediately pulled out a sheet of paper from his pocket and began reading "do you know why we are not using electricity..." which we had a good laugh out of, since he sounded like a bad commercial. But anyways to summarize, we are not to use electricity for one whole week. With the exemption of the stove (god I cannot imagine us cooking without a stove), the fridge, and the washer, everything else is off limits (list include light/clothing dryer/music players/computers/anything that you need to plug into an electric outlet). Phone conversations are limited to half an hour max.

So let me summarize how it was for me:
- the dark makes me sleepy, and everyone went to bed at around 9 to 10 pm because they are tired and they have nothing to do
- writing and reading using candlelight is a bitch to the eyes. I tried writing postcards using candlelight and gave up after the five or six postcard (I had at least 20 something of them to write). Because of that I resorted to asking Sally from work (yes there's actually a new lady who works with me in the afternoon now!) to borrow her flashlight (a good solid red one that became rather popular in the house, since I couldn't find my flashlight until the end of the week) just so I can read and write at night.
- Charles wanted this "no-electricity" thing to be a group bonding thing where people would talk to each other more...and it did for certain people (see blog about me/Cheryl/Stephen in the near future), but it also made people more independent and more into their own personal space, such as Zach...which I think is actually a very good thing.
- The whole washer with no dryer was rather weird...clothes were pretty much hung everywhere and I had lots of clothes from the Sault Ste. Marie excursion plus billeting, so I decided to use my resources and networking skills from town...I resorted to asking the Sisters if I can use their laundry machine and dryer, and they were kind enough to pick me up from the house and drop me off, and they even allowed Stephen (the nice Catholic boy) to come along. The kids were slightly miffed that we did that, and while we did laundry at their house we had ice-cream and watched House (both prohibited in Katimavik, haha).
- The dark did bring out some creativity in our activities...on Tuesday/Wednesday night we had a snowball fight (with a bunch of them piling up on me like football) which ended up as a star-gazing night also. As well, they did this truth or dare thing (I was writing postcards) and a bunch of the answered questions such as "what's the funkiest thing you have sticked in your butthole" (question directed to Zach who wouldn't answer, and he instead did a dare) and dares such as running outside in their boxers (Zach again). I am sure that was fun...they should be so lucky that I wasn't really there or else all their darkest secrets would have been revealed here, muhahahaha
- According to Zach and Cheryl, some people have broken the rule and used electricity. They especially mention Maxime, who is very gung-ho about this (she questioned me when I called my mom) but according to them she actually uses the hair dryer. I of course accidently broke the rule sometimes, when I turn on the light by habit or when I listen to Rebecca's CD player (my damn MP3 is broken), although the personal music thing is a gray area in this event.

Overall, I think the intentions of "no-electricity" for a week was very good, and except for some inconvenience it caused, it was tolerable. However I don't think it should be stretched on further, as some people suggested it should (Thank god it didn't). Because in my opinion, having no electricity in our house does not solve any actual problem with the environment or whatever. If anything we should learn to be more conscious about how we use energy and learn not to waste it. But it is quite an experience...and I think Emilie likes it so much that she just might do it each trimester, haha. And it did teach me that we take things for granted. Lights, hallelujah!

Vegetarianism and no electricity...what a week...