Yesterday was all about
power. Our electricity went out at
9 am and we assumed it was a usual power cut. But then Rose remembered something and discovered that we
were actually out of “credit” with the electric company. Let me explain.
You have to pre-pay for your
electricity here. You go to the
power company – they have little shops set up all over the place – and you give
them some money and they give you a receipt with a special number on it. Then you go home and find your
electricity meter, which is flashing a big 000 since you have no credit, and
you type in your special number.
Then the meter shows the amount of money you paid and as you now use
your electricity the number dwindles away until your credit is gone.
Ok! So this was my first day home alone with K back at work and I
was excited about the possibility of going out to buy more credit for both
electricity and my new cell phone (pretty much the same system as the
electricity – you buy credit and spend it down – which is also how we did it in
Nairobi). Rose sort of told me
where to go to buy the electricity (she did it last week) and I got into my
little Rav4 to explore on my own.
The place was so close to our
house – like 90 seconds drive (or I suppose a few minutes if one wasn’t afraid
of fainting in the heat) – that I drove by it, and while trying to find a place
to turn around I saw a sign for another similar place. So I drove a little further until I
found it, but of course the “machine” that lets you buy this electrical credit
was not working there. There was a
little convenience store so I went in there where I found out I could buy both
electrical and phone credit. The
manager was very nice and laughed at me when I told him, “I’m really new here!”
I safely drove myself home and
proudly showed Rose our electrical credit. Go me! I’m
officially independent and didn’t hit anything while driving on the “wrong”…I
mean left…side of the road. It was
a very good feeling (even though I was driving granny style – really slow!).
Next problem: in the time that I
had been out buying credit, the power did officially go out so that even if we
had credit, we would have no power.
This turned into a 12 ½ hour outage during 97 or 98 degree heat (that’s
like 36 or 37 degrees I think). We kept waiting and waiting, and getting hotter
and hotter. Noah won’t sleep when
he is really hot so he didn’t nap all day. Grace begged to watch a show but nothing was charged or
working so that was impossible.
Both kids spent most of the day naked and playing in a big laundry
bucket full of water (somehow it was better than the bathtub that they
refused). We took one field
trip – yes, I drove again! This time with passengers! – to the air conditioned
grocery store, but I had spent most of the money I had (and still don’t have my
own ATM card) on phone and electrical credit that we couldn’t buy much and
couldn’t loiter at the store too long.
To be honest, I told Kristoffer that I was too hot and exhausted to cook
hot food anyway and he ended up going for pizza at 7:30. Perhaps that made me a bad housewife on
Day 1 and yes he was the one at the office all day, but at he had A/C and did
not have two crazy-hot kids. The Dar version of me is a work in a progress.
At 9:30 or so last night the
power came back on. It turns out
that a big transformer for the whole area that we live in blew out, and they
are waiting for parts from Japan to arrive to fix it. I have no idea what is
powering our electricity in the meantime.
Kristoffer went out with one of the boys* around the compound and typed
in our electrical credit so that we could all get some nice A/C sleep last
night. Phew.
*There are two “shamba” boys living here, working for the
landlord **doing various jobs around the compound for them and now us (sweeping
our driveway or bringing us a paraffin lantern at night if there is no
power). There is also a “fundi”,
or carpenter, on the premises. His
name is Bahati and even though I can barely communicate with him, Rose and
Kristoffer are doing a good job and really like him.*
**From now on, I will refer to the landlord as Mr. or Mrs. S.**
So yesterday I felt powerful
because I could drive by myself, but powerless because we literally had no
power. Our generator is supposed
to be installed and running any day now…but the electrician is not very
predictable even though he keeps telling Mr. S that he is coming.
Today we have only had one short
power cut but otherwise it is cooler today and the power is on. Grace happily had 30 minutes of charged
iPad time and Noah even took a little nap.
LMW
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