7 days and counting...

Today is our 7^th day in a row without NEPA (mains electricity). Apparently the transformer has broken, which means that our whole road has no power (or ‘light’ as Nigerians would say). The volunteers who live on the next road also had no NEPA for a few days and were also told it was something to do with a transformer, but somehow their power is back and ours is still off.

This has meant that most of the food in our fridge has gone off. We had got complacent and started to cook up batches of food to store in there and to buy large amounts of vegetables at the weekend to last us the week; so most of that went off and we’re now back to buying food on a daily basis.

It has also meant that we’ve had to make sure that we take our appliances to work every day (laptop, phone charger, ipods, digital radio/speaker) to charge up. This hasn’t been too hard – I’ve been at a workshop at a hotel for most of the week, and since Nigerians are used to the electricity problem, it’s not thought at all odd to plug in your various things to charge around the workshop room!

It was frustrating at first that we couldn’t have the fans on in the evening – especially since, with no light, we use candles to see by, which only adds to the heat in the house! But I think we’re getting used to it, and the fans really were a luxury in the first place.

I think the main thing I miss when we have no electricity – apart from being able to watch DVDs or email without worrying about the laptop battery – is being able to have a cold drink. We boil and filter our water, and so it always ends up tasting like the filter ‘candles’ which are made out of something chalky; not the worst taste in the world, and when we’re thirsty, we’ll drink it, but so much nicer when it’s cold and you can’t really taste the calcium in it!

I learnt from Facebook that a volunteer elsewhere in Nigeria went without electricity for 20 days. That’s the kind of thing I wish I didn’t know. It’s like when you have hiccups, and you think “It’s ok – they can’t last forever.” And then you remember that woman who got into the Guinness Book of World Records for having hiccups that lasted 29 years. I’m sure this won’t last 29 years. And even if it does, the bar down the road has a generator and a fridge full of beer.