A Day Like Many Others

11 January 2011 or 11/1/11.  I have to laugh a little at myself today.  I awoke right on time, when usually the day is already fully light.  But today the skies were uncharacteristically dark.  It was gray and overcast, the sign of the rain soon to come.  Being a compulsive about this, I turned the computer on right away and downloaded the morning’s first emails.  Then I went in to shave.  I had just gotten a good lather when the electricity went off.  You don’t just waste a good lather, so I got my headlamp and put it on.  Now you can’t just shine a headlamp into a mirror and look at your face—the bright light shines right into your eyes!  So I angled the lamp off to the side, but then every time I turned my head to see my cheek or neck in the mirror, the light also turned away and put me in the dark shadows again.   The problem wasn’t insurmountable, but I did amuse myself trying to get the light just right so I could finish my shave.  You might try shaving in the dark with a headlamp sometime, just to experience what my shave was like today.  Oh, and to get the full experience, use only cold water.

Because the power was off, there was no electric water heater for the shower today.  So a pot of water heated on the stove (some of the best advice we got was to buy a propane cook top) poured into to a few gallons in a big bucket became my shower.  Pour on a little water, suds up, and pour on a little more water to rinse off.  It’s not a bad shower at all.  Way better than the cold showers I took 2 years ago.

The rain really cools things off here.  When I came back home from the office around 11:30 this morning, the indoor temperature was hovering around 23 C (or 75 F), way down from our typical 28 or 29.  I was so cold that my socks and long sleeved shirt (both worn only on the coldest days) were not enough.  Only with a blanket wrapped around me did I finally feel comfortably warm.  And then I thought of the 32 years we spent in Alaska—especially the day when the managing partner let all the staff leave work early because the temperature hit 75 degrees and the day was just too warm and beautiful to stay at work any longer.  My how we change.

The electricity is still off now as I type on battery power. It’s already been off 8 hours today.  Yesterday it was off about 10 hours.  It seems to go off about every other day, or sometimes every day.  And sometimes it’s on during the day but off all night.  Tanzania has been undergoing some serious electricity rationing for months now.  I’m not sure of all the causes, but what I hear includes generator breakdowns, shortage of water for hydro, bad maintenance and lack of parts and, especially, burgeoning demand.  Even the locals, who often seem blasé about poor infrastructure and service (they know how to get along on little), are beginning to complain that the constant interruptions are killing their businesses.  It’s true.  If you try a day at work without electricity, let me know how it turns out.