Saturday, February 21, 2009

Electricity Woes

Electricity has been a major challenge in recent weeks. We can generally count on it from midnight til 6 a.m. But wait, I'm supposed to be sleeping then.

My computer battery is dead. I can only get about 2 minutes on it after the electricity goes off. I'm trying to get one from the U.S. as soon as possible.

Our compound has a large generator which powers six houses. However, it developed a problem last week so we can no longer count on that from 6:45 p.m. til 10:30 p.m. as we had been.

We have a small household generator that we start up when we really need electricity to get some work done or get the fridge cold. We bought it about a year ago, and it was definitely one of the best investments we ever made. Just knowing that we have access to electricity when we want it alleviates potential depression!

We have some battery lights that run off a truck battery. The big battery charges whenever we have electricity. This has been a tremendous help over the years. The lights are actually very bright.

Even our 3-year-old has a basic understanding of which system we're using for light. She will talk about battery light, compound gen, our gen, and NEPA (the national electric company) with great fluency.

Just think of us the next time you open your fridge and see that beauitful light--or the next time you charge your cell phone--or the next time you print a document, etc, etc, etc!

2 comments:

UcheSarah said...

Just reading your post brought back a flood of memories from our time in Nigeria. It took me a month or so of being back in the States to not think, oh NEPA is on I better charge my phone! I'm so grateful that we have constant power here in Manila. If we ever go back to Nigeria, Uche and I have decided that a gen is a must!!

Sandi said...

It's good for us to be reminded that your struggle with electricity is a on-going battle. We tend to forget that even though we've experienced it. It's also good to remember how blessed we are in the US with continuous reliable power.