Exploding generators. Burning power poles. Rising flames in the cold, dark night – that is probably not how you would imagine Christmas eve, innit? Well, life is full of surprises.
When we woke up on Christmas morning in the lovely San Antonio, which we now call our second home, we were quite excited to celebrate our first Christmas far away from home. We were looking forward to spend the day with our Ecuadorian family, to get to know their Christmas traditions and of course to eat the traditional food.
It was already planned to come together with the whole family on Christmas eve in Casa Durazno, which is a cultural center and a cozy home in one, so the Abuela could join us. Although she lives in the neighbouring house, her entrance is through Casa Durazno, therefore we are living like roomies.
The whole day was filled with preparing Christmas dinner, waiting desperately and helping out to get everything ready for the big feast. Until suddenly the light started flickering. Confused as we were we paused with what we were doing. As we peaked outside we spotted a huge crowd at the corner of the chapel. Obviously, as we are very curious people and love chisme of the pueblo, we stepped outside and joined the crowd.
“Que paso?” “Mira mira. Un fuego!” “Alguien llama los bomberos!” There was quite literally a fire. One of the generators of the power poles was in flames. But it didn´t
stop there. Suddenly, a lightning shot through some power cables with sparks falling to the ground.
The people were shocked. A murmur went through the crowd. Never had happened anything like it. Certainly not on Christmas eve.
You could quite literally see, as generators exploded when sparks reached them, how the light in more and more houses went off.
In our case we didn´t have any other choice than to celebrate Christmas eve in Casa Durazno. The only obvious problem we faced was the lack of electricity. When we entered the house everyone was close to tears wondering how we could still turn this around and save the night. So, creativity had to be used in order to come up with a solution. Candles! Everyone available helped to find and light up candles ´til the salon was lit by warm candlelight. And we could not have dreamt of a better night. We spent the evening playing cards, enjoying delicious treats that had been prepared beforehand, exchanging presents, sharing love and laughter and
making memories for a lifetime. In retrospective, the blackout was the best thing that could ´ve happened to us as the candlelight created the best possible outcome for Christmas eve. And so we spent our Christmas without electricity and instead with candles. Until this day nobody knows what had started the fire and certainly no one would have imagined a Christmas like this, but we will cherish the memories forever.
Xoxo, Torbs and Eli
