I know it is a continuing theme of my posts but it is a reality here in Gaborone these days.

Once again for the past two days the power has gone off in the afternoon not to be switched back on until 10:00 pm. This is a switch on time that seems to be getting gradually later and later. Previous Monday & Tuesday outages at least allowed for me prepare and eat my dinner by 9:15 or so. This 10 pm is really a pain especially when the power goes out well before it is time to prepare a meal.

As much as I am complaining about these outages, I have to admit that I am coping with them much better than some Batswana that I know. My coping skills no doubt were honed by living on Prince Edward Island, a tiny island off of the east coast of Canada. Growing up on this island in a very rural community situated directly on the north shore (we have amazing water views and shore front for sale!) you became very accustomed to winter, spring and fall storms knocking power out for days sometimes weeks at a time.

In the winter there are often blizzards and snow storms that make venturing out impossible…in fact I was just talking to my parents and my mom was saying how they are getting snow storm after storm right now and it is almost the end of March. During my childhood sometimes the snow would pile up so high that it was virtually impossible for the very large snow plows to cut even a path through them. If you lost power it often took days for the electricity crews to make their way through the snow to fix the problem.

Spring time in on PEI can bring similar power challenges only this time it is the result of ice storms. I can remember that the spring five years ago brought a major ice storm that knocked out our power for more than a week. Luckily I was able to shower at work everyday!

And fall can bring hurricanes or major wind storms that also bring down the power lines. So as you can see the Gaborone power outages really are old hat to me! It is very nice to know that some of my adaptive skills learned in Canada come in handy here in Africa.

Well it is time to go and finish preparing my dinner….it is so nice to actually eat hot food at a reasonable time.