Time Change [a little late]

One of the things I find confusing about living in the southern hemisphere is keeping track of the time difference between here and home. I had it figured out for a while - it was a three hour time difference between here and Austin. Then, Austin went forward and we were only two hours apart. A few weeks late Asuncion fell back and then we were only one hour apart. Over the span of a month I had a three, two, and one hour difference in times. Huh? Some of this is because Asuncion and the US didn't change their clocks at the same time. I'm used to time changes being just a few days apart, figuring it was some archaic reason that didn't have every country changing their time the same day. (Of course this only holds up when I don't think about that fact that there are some states and countries that never change their clocks). This year it seemed a bit different. I couldn't help but realize that the government of a country plays a definite roll in this.


Yes, it seems that the president decided to delay moving the clocks back in order to save daylight and cut down on electricity needs in the country, due to the energy crisis. The energy crisis? There is one of those here? I mean, I remember one day when all of the electricity across the entire city went out - but that only happened once that I can recall. I haven't really seen a crisis, at least not like the rolling blackouts that are common in other places. So I had to do a bit of research to find out what was going on.

It turns out that originally Paraguay was due to change time on March 14th. Due to problems with energy transmission it was pushed back to April 11th. And yes, this was official – as declared by presidential decree 3958. It doesn’t seem that the problem which lead to this change is the available energy, more that the mechanics which transport the energy are old and breaking down. In fact, from what I’ve been able to understand Paraguay doesn’t particularly worry about available energy. After all 90% of its power is supplied by Itaipu Dam, the hydroelectric dam on the Parana River between Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina.