power on? power off?
on Tara's Ethiopian Adventure (Ethiopia), 18/Mar/2010 08:13, 34 days ago
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Recently we have been having a lot of power cuts. Last week it was pretty much every other day for 12 hours at a time and some nights. This week they seem to be alternating mornings or afternoons off. Most of the electricity in Ethiopia comes from Hydro-electric power, however now we are now well into the dry season the water supply seems to be running low and with it the electricity supply. Apparently a new dam was opened this year which was supposed to fix the demand supply problem. However, two weeks after opening, it broke. There are rumours that it will be fixed shortly but no one holds too much hope for this and most people are preparing themselves for a similar situation to last year, where power was off at least every other day and sometimes for several days at a time.The power cuts are apparently predetermined by the electricity board so it should be possible to plan ahead but no one I speak too seems to be able to provide me with information about the schedule. There are a number of generators serving the main offices in the university but not our office. So it seems most days at the moment we sit in a dark office with no printer and no internet. Thankfully we have a long battery life on our laptops so we can still get on with things. I’ve also made friends with guys in the IT office so in an emergency I can hang out in their office which is served by a generator.We are also very fortunate that the University supplied us with a gas cooker so our cooking is not reliant on electricity. Most of our VSO friends have to resort to their Kerosene stoves when their one ring electric hob can’t be used. Either that or eat out. When our shower was working no electricity would also mean cold showers but we haven’t had a working shower for the last month so are getting very used to bucket showers! It is amazing how quickly you get used to just boiling up some water in a pan and using that to wash. My friend Nancy’s boiler broke 2 months ago and now she is not even missing it.
