August 30, 2006

Daylight Savings Time: yes, no, maybe


Honduras decided to observe daylight savings time in 2006. Days are very short in Central America. I have always thought that Central America and the Atlantic side of Mexico were in the wrong time zone. Dawn breaks too early for me and the sun goes down way too early for this night owl.

Here in Honduras we have daylight roughly from about 5:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. in the summer (13 1/2 hours) and 6:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. in the winter (11 1/2 hours). Gardeners know that this has gardening implications, some plants won't fruit or go to seed unless the days are longer.


Three months ago, Honduras went to daylight savings time. In May we turned our clocks forward an hour − well, at least parts of the country did. Apparently part of the country just ignored it. I don't know which part, but my guess is that was probably Roatán and the other Bay Islands, since they like to think of themselves as in a separate country anyway.

I loved daylight savings time! It was like a free extra hour in every day, since I'm usually asleep during that first daylight hour. It made sense to me, especially since there are so many people who don't have electricity (approximately 40% of the population). Give them an extra hour in the evenings when they can enjoy it. I was hoping we would never change back.


Now after only three months, it has been determined that the government has saved "only" 90 million lempiras in energy costs (approximately $4,750,000 U.S.). Why bother for a paltry one million lemps per day which can easily be replaced by donations from the U.S., Japan, or the World Bank? So President Zelaya ordered us to roll the clocks back on August 3rd.

But only for a time; he will be revisiting the issue in November and we may change our clocks again. I'm so confused about this. I don't even know if we would be moving the clocks forward or back in November.

Newer posts Older posts
Home

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...