My day without electricity

First, I wasn’t concerned. There had been a big storm the night before – big enough that I expected the electricity to go out.

When I came back from my teachers’ meeting at noon and still didn’t have power, that’s when I started getting concerned. I got even more concerned when I heard the theme of the TV news coming from my neighbor’s house. She had power, and I didn’t. My alarm was raised even more when I realized I only had enough battery on my computer to watch a 19-minute episode of How I Met Your Mother as opposed to a 43-minute West Wing, my usual lunchtime distraction.

By 3 p.m., I was getting pissy. Not having electricity here is still like not having electricity in the United States – you irrationally forget everything that you know how to do that doesn’t involve power.

I sat dumfounded until another English teacher invited me to the bar. It had electricity, but drinking water-downed Beninese beer is not necessarily an activity that requires power.

I got home an hour and a half later and 45 minutes after the sun went down. To my disappointment, my lights had not magically been restored. I am writing this by the light of my headlamp. I long for my fan, but alas, waving my hand in front of my face will have to suffice.

My town has electricity mainly because of its proximity to one of the main highways in Benin. I by no means live like the majority of volunteers here. My postmate lives like this every day. And with less whiny blog posts.

Sometimes I receive responses to text messages days later because the person I texted does not have power, and thus, cannot recharge their cellphone on a regular basis. I have become accustomed to this, and I know that my village is one of the lucky ones. It’s hard to remember this when all you want to do is pass the evening on the Internet. It’s much easier, when able, to revert back to the same things that I used to complain about when I lived in the US.

I hope that, like on Christmas morning, I will awaken tomorrow with the greatest gift of all – the power to charge my laptop.

It’s a weird feeling having first world issues in Benin.