We are in the middle of some power "troubles" due to some problems in Nigeria. My something wonderful today is ELECTRICITY! Since moving to Niger, we have come to really appreciate this common everyday luxury. Last night when the power went off around 7PM we thought well maybe it'll just be a few hours and when it was time for bed we could use our A/C or at least the fan. Well, no luck the outage ended up being about 20 hours long with a brief 15 minute reprieve around 1PM this afternoon. I quickly put the laundry in and checked email and well, then it went back off and I just thought, oh well.....I have another something wonderful today a GENERATOR! It is amazing to me that we can generate our own power and when we are not having long outages and not as concerned (diesel is quite expensive as everything is here) about long periods of use we put it on automatic. That is a far cry from what we did last year...we sweat it out! I am a pretty big baby, but I am learning just to roll with it. Many people are not fortunate enough to have generators. so today we used the generator to do laundry and to of all things MOW THE GRASS. That is still so funny to me that Ferdinand uses a mower that is delivered to our gate and then plugged in! I do love power and all it affords and well I also LOVE a great display of lightning. I sure wish Niger would come up with a solution to produce more of it's own power. Right now they only produce 20% and the rest is obtained from Nigeria hence the problem! So if anyone out there is reading and wants to help Niger with a power plan and maybe some great funding for solar power....just let me know and i will lead your cause! So back to earth......for now, the power came back just as the kids walked in the door from school, and that is pretty wonderful too!
It is amazing how quickly and how often we take the everyday luxuries for granted in the USA. I get very frustrated when my internet service is down for a couple of minutes let alone 20 hours. And that's not even considering the electricity. Part of me wants to pray for humility... but part of me is a bit afraid of where that prayer can lead! : )
ReplyDeleteLuke