Recently my girlfriend shouted for me to come because flame was arcing from a plug in the kitchen.  Here in Chile electricity is something to fear for the household electric current is a potentially lethal 220 volts.   In the USA we only use that level to power heavy machine and get by with 110 volts for every day use.  So if you touch a live wire in the USA you will get an uncomfortable jolt that can still be quite dangerous if for example you are standing in water.  But here in Chile 220 volts can set you on fire.


When Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham bell were running competing laboratories in New Jersey Mr. Bell, the Canadian inventor of the telephone, argued that electricity should be delivered to customers in DC (direct current) instead of AC (alternating current) format because it was safer.  For technical reasons Mr. Edison’s preference held sway and now in the USA we have the familiar three pronged electrical plug which delivers AC power at 110 volts.  There are two prongs for power and the third is an optional ground wire for reasons of safety.  If you have an appliance which will not fit an older house in the USA you can simply snap off the ground wire at your own peril of course.



If you have travelled overseas much you know that European countries use different outlets.  As the world has grown smaller there has been some standardization in appliances, currency, railway gauge, and so forth.  For example one no longer needs to read the manual to learn how to operate a French toilet with its overhead bin and hanging chain.


But here in Chile–at the bottom of the world they like to say–things are different. The household outlet is two round holes.  In Colombia, for example, it is the same as the USA but for whatever reason of history here it is two round plugs instead of flat ones.  So no American appliance will fit here without a converter.  Some appliances, laptop computers for example, include the ability to use either 220 or 110 volts on the input side.  Still at 220 volts I have burned through three converters on my Apple and Acer computers so find it more prudent to plug them into a 110 volt source.  At 220 volts the laptop power cord gets quite hot:  a symbol perhaps that it is struggling.


Such differences in day-to-day life make for some funny moments.  The number of outlets in older houses has not kept pace with the surge in the number of appliances with which we conduct our daily affairs.  So my girlfriend and her son are constantly unplugging one apparatus to connect another.  When I want to turn on the bed side lamp to read “click” nothing happens.  I have to reach around in the dark all the way across the room to find that her son has taken my extension cord to charge his cell phone so the alarm will wake him at 7.  The school bus shows up at 7:30 exactly sounding the horn to announce its arrival.  Because he often forgets to charge his phone when the bus honks its horn we shout his name and he often dashes off to school without having even combed his hair fairly leaping from a position of repose to a dash down 4 flights of stairs to the waiting bus.  Myself thus awakened head to the kitchen to brew a pot of tea but cannot because our daughter has taken the extension cord which connects that.  Such is life.


This week the youth of Chile have taken to the streets twice to protest.  First 50,000 students marched on the Plaza Italia to condemn the government’s lack of financial support for higher education.  And then on four occasions protesters turned violent waging pitched battles with the police over the government’s approval to build the Hydro Aysen electrical dams in Patagonia.  Here at our apartment we had to close the windows as tear gas drifted in from downtown.  The police fired back at kids hurling rocks with water cannons and tear gas canisters including one which hit a girl in the head and sent her to the hospital bloodied.  My Chilean friends asked whether we have such protests in the USA.  Never.  We use lawyers when we wish to compel government to change its tactics.  A project like Hydro Aysen can be delayed by 30 years or more in the USA simply by the inertia of the legal process.  While that frustrates me greatly it certainly seems more prudent an action that sending out ones youth to battle the police in riot gear at great risk to one´s health.