Day: January 16, 2026

(Continued from Part 1.  This concludes the article.) During winter, even the U.S. Embassy monitored the grid closely. The possibility of a complete system failure was taken seriously enough that commercial flights were placed on twenty-four-hour standby for potential evacuation of official personnel. We were nongovernmental residents. Those plans did not include us. Our planning had to be personal. Cold changed how time felt. Days stretched and compressed unpredictably. Waiting became a skill. Movement slowed, not from laziness, but from necessity. Mistakes in cold were costly. Dropping something, misjudging exposure, forgetting a step could mean numb fingers, wasted effort, or …