The Value of Electricity

I don't think I've really valued electricity as much as I do right now in Sudan. I now thank people like
Benjamin Franklin, Luigi Galvani, Alessandro Volta, Georg Simon Ohm, Michael Faraday and many others for dedicating time to provide us with electromagnetism and thus electricity.

I think Sudan is one of the countries where I've experienced the most power cuts so far (yes it does beat Ethiopia!!). Sudan, or rather Khartoum has the annoying habit of generating power cuts once, sometimes 2 times a day..... these power cuts are not any normal power cut which lasts a couple of minutes or sometimes a night (where you don't need much power anyway cause you sleep)..... but it tends to last for hours, starting from the afternoon and going on all the way till the night.......

Back at home, when we had power cuts my brother and I used to enjoy playing around with candles... the mysteriousness of candle light and the moving shadows has always fascinated, so in a storm night when there was a power cut I used to enjoy having the candle light dinner with my family, then playing cards or monopoly and later reading a book in candle light - it was fun!!! and it only lasted 2 or 3 hours max anyway...... so nothing you get bored of very quickly... yeah a bit annoying when you were planning on a night watching a good movie you knew was on or getting ready for a good night out where you still had to blow dry your hair and figure out the right clothing colour combination....

A couple of weeks ago my apartment’s generator was being fixed.... it was also the time when I had one of my frequent Sudanese attacks where I was unable to go to work... one of these famous power cuts decided to attack..... This power cut decided to go on a nice long vacation..... I needed to occupy my time.... I couldn't cook.... although it was gas operated, it needed electricity to ignite the fire (typically enough I had no lighter or matches), I tried doing some work on my laptop..... 3hrs
later the battery abandoned me, so I lay on the sofa and dug into my book. All was well till the sun started setting..... So I decided to go and try and find some candles for the apartment - either the Sudanese didn't understand me when I tried describing candles.... or there were really no candles.... I went back home, maybe I could have an early night... and bumped into my house mate.... we deiced to watch a DVD, as her computer still had battery. The battery abandoned us half way through the movie..... at 10pm, both wide awake, we decided to go for another walk, which consisted walking up and down our street 4 times (we had just arrived, we were afraid of getting lost and we both had no idea of our home address!!) when we finally decided to give going home a try (we could not take the 40 degrees of heat and were in desperate need of air-conditioning), we found all the other inhabitants of the building outside on the patio to complain about the generator....... having nothing better to do we joined...... about 3hrs later the light came.... Alleluia!!! - 3 days later the generator was fixed and we all lived happily every after...

.....I later discovered the Sudan phenomena, candles are very rarely the solutions..... this is where technology comes in....... the solutions are generators and battery operated torches!!!!

Almost every building in Khartoum has a generator...... every block of apartments, the grocer round the corner, even the local barber and dress maker!!!

The other day I was in desperate need of ice-cream, so I decided to walk down the road to the corner market, the walk was pleasant, the road was quite apart from the occasional
ickshaw..... After walking around the alleys, I bought myself a nice one ltr tub of ice-cream.... as soon as I got to the counter the light went off!!!! I was in desperate need of this ice-cream so I tried asking whether the shop had a generator.... the owner confidently answered yes, yelled at someone in the shop who scurried off out in the street and smiled at me. I eagerly held on to my tub of ice-cream and patiently waited for electricity..... the guys behind me gave up and walked off.... but I desperately needed my ice-cream.... 15mins later the generator was up and running and I could finally pay for the ice-cream.....

The most amazing thing is the walk back.... the street lighting was no different, there are no street lights anyway..... But the walk home was noisy!!!! The street was buzzing with generators doing their
job!!!! Amazing!!! Never saw so many generators working together in my life!!!!!!

I was having a chat with some of the employees here, and some have told me that Khartoum zones actually take it in turn to have power!!!!! This half day its zone 1, next half day its zone 2 and 4, then maybe we can give zone 3 & 5 a shot at electricity....... amazing, speak about economizing on electricity consumption!!!!