thank god it's NOT friday!

i never count on having electricity. while people think i live the good life here in the city, there are many many perks to living in a village. not having running water and electricity means you don't have to worry about not having it. you have a well and a solar charger and you're all set. but here in the city, when we don't have water or electricity, our daily activities are made more complicated. in my case not having electricity is just annoying, but not having water is tragic. i do live near a river but i won't drink out of it. i don't have a well or a latrine, so if i don't have water, it means a rough afternoon. it brings a whole new meaning to if it's yellow, let it mellow...

so the other night, a few days after god gave us internet, a semi-truck was bellowing down the street and took out a power line. this is the second time i've seen this in Mali. the first time the truck was trying to turn a corner and was too long so instead of backing up, the truck started to pull down a whole power pole. we skedaddled before the worst could happen. the other night, the power line was straddling the street for a few hours before the cut the electricity for the whole area, but our was cut immediately because it was the line to our house.

this is when i really question the amenities of the modern world. how, in god's name, do we manage disasters like this when the people regulating it aren't the most effective at doing things quickly? there wasn't a fire and no one was hurt but it was a pretty dangerous situation. so, that night, a particularly hot one, i, and all the people at my house, slept outside. it was a wednesday.

all i could think this hot wednesday night was "thank god it's not friday." if it were friday we would be without electricity until monday, for sure. i've encountered this situation before. we didn't pay our electricity bill on time and they cut off our electricity AND running water on friday at 10 am. here in mali the week ends at 11:30 on friday morning, so any business you need done, should have been done yesterday. so we didn't get electricity back until tuesday or wednesday the following week. those five days were in the 110s. hot hot hot. and no water. so we had to pay some guy to go to the local faucet about 1/2 a kilometer away and bring us enough water everyday.

we ended up getting electricity back the other day by 3 pm. in less than 24 hours we were back online. miraculous.

p.s. i haven't checked this for spelling and grammar so please excuse the typos.