MY GIFT TO YOU—GET YOUR FREE EBOOK—”THE 5-DAY JOURNEY TO CULTURAL AWARENESS”!
April 28, 2025 . . . a strange day, to say the least.
I was sitting in my favorite cafe in Madrid, enjoying a traditional Spanish breakfast of tostada con tomate and cafe con lèche with two friends. We were talking about life, about work, about friendship.
In the middle of our conversation, the unexpected happened.
The lights went out in the cafe.
It was odd. We paused the conversation, asked each other questions of curiosity, looked around, and continued our discussion.
Little by little, the cafe cleared out. Usually hustling and bustling at that hour, it was odd. We were the only ones in the cafe besides the three servers behind the counter.
We had been together for two and a half hours, and one of the ladies had to leave for another appointment.
While saying goodbye, my phone rang. I quickly silenced it.
Another one of the women’s phones rang. She answered and seemed concerned.
“It’s my husband,” she said, stepping out of the cafe.
I looked at my phone to discover an alarming message from my oldest son, who lived in Germany. It was written in our family group chat.
“If you’re trying to reach Mom and Dad, you can’t. The entire power grid of Spain is down.”
“What?”
I quickly asked the servers behind the counter, “Is electricity down in all of Spain?”
“Yes, all of Spain.”
I called my son, and he answered.
“It’s all of Spain, and all of Portugal.”
The woman talking to her husband came inside the cafe to relay to us the same message.
“Also France.”
My son on the line said, “Also Italy.”
The call cut out.
I tried to call home and to send texts to my family and friends to tell them, but nothing would go through.
No electricity, no internet, no cellular data, nothing.
Fear seized me . . . every part of me.
Unexpected. Blindsided.
“I feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone. It seems unreal,” I said to my friends.
Confused. Stunned.
“Is it a cyber attack?”
Disoriented. Disillusioned.
“They don’t know.”
Overload. Beyond the capacity to function.
Was that what happened with the electric system in Europe?
Was it just an innocent and natural phenomenon? Too much stress, too much work, too much demand for the power grid to withstand, to maintain, to continue to function?
Was it a terrorist attack?
Was it an evil, intentional act to kill, to steal, to destroy, to instill fear and terror?
We didn’t know.
We were completely in the dark.
Utter darkness.
We were completely cut off from the world, from all communication.
Utter silence.
We didn’t know what the source was. We didn’t know how long it would last. Minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks?
We didn’t know what to do. We had no information.
We had no cash to pay our bill. The credit card machines were not functioning.
We had some gas in the car, but no GPS to know where to go.
We had each other, me and these two women, but we felt alone and isolated in the cafe.
The freeways were backed up, standstill. The grocery stores were packed, panicked.
“Remember that warning message that the E.U. sent out a few weeks ago?”
They had encouraged everyone to get an emergency bag ready in case something happened. I thought it was a joke. We didn’t heed the warning—cash, food, water, medicines, documents, clothes for 72 hours.
“Maybe they knew something was coming.”
At the house, we had some cash, some water, some food, but it wouldn’t last long. Without electricity, we couldn’t cook or heat up anything.
“Should we go to the grocery store?” “Should we fill bottles of water?” “What should we do?”
We scrambled. Everyone scrambled, trying to figure things out.
We asked people on the streets, our next-door neighbors. No one had any more information than we did.
We all looked for bits and pieces of information, things we had heard, gossip from others, words off the radio . . . trying to put the mystery puzzle together.
We were all in the dark.
Night started to fall.
“We need to find flashlights and candles.”
We found candles, but no flashlights.
We lit them.
“Let’s take the dogs on a walk before the last bit of daylight is gone,” I told my son.
Pitch darkness was creeping in slowly, quickly. We couldn’t see where we walked. We couldn’t see our next step. I could barely make out the white fur of our dogs in the black of night.
“It’s scary. Is WWIII starting? Are we all going to die?”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to the fears my child voiced. I had the same fears, the same questions.
“Can I sleep with you?”
He was 12-years-old and afraid of the dark. I was 52-years-old and afraid of the dark.
Darkness. Silence. Confusion. Disorientation.
No communication with anyone. No answers. No timelines. No information. No source. No details. No clarity.
Utter darkness.
During the night, the lights came back on. Electricity was restored. The utter darkness was scary, long, and silent, but it didn’t last forever. The fear, the panic that seized us were gone . . . in an instant!
Whatever story of darkness, silence, and fear you are walking through . . . I hope and pray that it won’t last long.
Utter darkness . . . no more.
—THE CULTURAL STORY-WEAVER
MY GIFT TO YOU—GET YOUR FREE EBOOK—”THE 5-DAY JOURNEY TO CULTURAL AWARENESS”!
LET’S WEAVE CULTURES!
What about you? Have you ever experienced a total blackout like this, for 12 hours or more? How did you feel? If you haven’t had this experience, what do you imagine it would be like?
We invite you to tell us your own cultural stories and global adventures . . . as you engage with the world, breaking down barriers, building bridges, and “weaving cultures”! Write about them in the comment box below.
