Is there anything more funny......

Than a power outage in Africa…

That commences….

While you are bathing?

Yet another instance to chalk up to “all you can do is laugh.” Out loud. Which makes the whole situation even more bizarre. I’m squatting over a basin tub filled with two inches of lukewarm soapy water and the power goes out. And in Africa when the power goes out it gives new meaning to the idea of dark.

So here I am giggling, which is suddenly twice as loud as it would have been, as a result of sitting in a small concrete room with rafters that echoes as well as the fact that the blaring television has just been silenced. I hear my host family muttering to each other in Setswana as they search for the candle, probably also commenting on Lorato who is laughing at herself in the dark. Privacy doesn’t exist here. As has become common in these situations, I immediately take stock of what I have to be grateful for, which in this instance includes the fact that my hair is rinsed clean of most soap. I contemplate attempting to wash my feet, and whist considering the physics the long walk down the dark hallway and the with soapy slippery feet, (all that is left to clean, bucket bathing moves from the top down) and think “screw it” my feet have been effectively clean all of about once since I have been in Africa, when I gave myself a pedicure, otherwise they are stained with the reddish dust I have come to consider a second skin.

Instead I root around for the towel I brought in, strictly to ward off hypothermia (an exaggeration) because hey, who can see my naked white ass in the dark!? I find my way to the door only tripping over one of the three buckets necessary for the task of bathing, and through a combination and trial and error, luck and echo location find my way to my room at the end of the hallway. I groped around for my headlamp, which was nestled smartly under all my freshly sundried laundry (which incidentally is not as delightful a concept as the tomatoes), get dressed and then set about finding my phone. I text messaged my friend and neighbor Cait, as it seems that when these strange occurrences happen in the Peace Corps we want to make certain that everyone else is suffering at equally adequate levels as we are. Indeed, her power was out as well, and she was now cooking her family’s dinner by candlelight (gas stove). (I had cooked for my family once too. I think after my improvised spaghetti went over like a lead balloon I cured them of any further desires to sample American cuisine. Amazing that my culinary skills did not increase magically as I flew over the Atlantic. Huh.) I asked her to remind me to mention in my blog that if any of my wealthy benefactors felt like sending me a solio charger (www.rei.com) they are more than welcome to. She asked me to remind her to buy candles before she gets to site. To each her own;-)

So I put on my headlamp, went to clean up the bathroom and take the bucket of bathwater out to the yard to dump on the fenceline. I walked through the front room, where I find my host mom staring sadly at the quiet television. They had just turned on the TV for the first time that day, as I had ironed my skirt this morning for my interview. These two things seem unrelated but in a bizarre turn of events that can only happen in Africa, they are directly connected. Why I chose today to iron, when every other day I just show up in my sundried wrinkly best is beyond me, but I had left the adaptor for the television in my room. The Peace Corps has a policy that every home a trainee stays in have a lock on the door, and although I am usually running too late to remember/have time to lock it (imagine that, my morning habits haven’t changed across the Atlantic, either) my host family is extremely respectful of my privacy and would never enter my room if I weren’t there. They won’t even come in when I’m there. My door can be wide open and propped and my brother will still call “knock-knock” from the doorway and wait for me to come over to him if he wants to ask me something. Although I should have known something was up when I came home and everyone was sitting on the porch and the TV was silent, I neglected to notice. So it was one of these very “knock-knock” instances that made me realize that I had committed the ultimate sin of leaving for the ENTIRE DAY AND LEAVING THE ADAPTOR TO THE TV IN MY ROOM! The Batswana are so polite that although my host brother and sister (who is really his mom but I call them both my siblings, it’s easier that way) both have my cell number, they didn’t bother to text to me ask about it. The best question in this entire quandary is why no appliances in Botswana have plugs that match the outlets in the houses, causing all residents to need to purchase adaptors to run anything that plugs into the wall, but to contemplate this is a mystery I’m not willing to undertake. The only other adapter in the house is attached to the fridge. I’m not even going to tell you what it takes to make toast. Television or fan, refrigerator or pressed clothes. We’ve got miniature Sophie’s Choice going on every day.

So I watch the candlelight dancing across my host mother’s face as she stares at the blank screen. I scrunch my own face in an attempt to conjure the words to again express my apologies for the adaptor incident (although I imagine I’m more difficult than usual to take seriously due to my headlamp shadowing my features) and reach past her to open the door. As I yank the handle (it generally sticks. Most doors do here.) I see a tall, thin figure dressed in head to toe black. It takes exactly the correct amount of time for me to go through every grim reaper/slasher/ shadowy ghost terror I have as it does to finally realize it’s my host brother. (no, I did not drop the bucket). My yelp of terror entertains my host mom immensely, nearly as much as the time I summoned my brother to kill the enormous cockroach that had been eluding me and slinking around my room (more like I froze in terror and yelped for Mompati to come kill the monster under my bed in broken Setswana, but really, the thing was as long as my pinky finger). I was back in good graces.

I walked out into the darkness across the yard and over to the fenceline. I dumped the soapy water and looked up across the darkened horizon. The night sky is huge on any given occasion, but on a night when the few lights that exist in Africa were extinguished it was like looking into my own personal planetarium. The night wasn’t even that clear and it was phenomenal. I’ve noticed, and my comrades have agreed that the sunrises and sunsets here are simply amazing. We are blessed with National Geographic caliber sunrises and sunsets. Every day. While I stand in the yard and brush my teeth in the morning the sky lights up with blues and purples and oranges and golds the likes of which I have never seen. In the evening as I bring in my laundry it’s like a painting. I don’t know if it’s something about the slower pace of life or lack of distractions that makes me notice these times, but I’m pretty sure it’s just more beautiful.

I take notice of the big yellow moon guiding my way across the yard and smile again at the candlelight flickering in the front room of my little concrete house. I go in and sit down to write this blog, the old fashioned way, with a pen and paper, and my hsot mom smiles at me. In her soft raspy voice she says “Lorato o wa kwala,” (Lorato is writing) happy for any opportunity to teach me Setswana. She and my brother are generally bored whenever the TV is not on. The nation as a whole seems to be in the infantile stages of television appreciation wherein they are thrilled to have the infernal machine on and watch whatever is offered on the one national station (BTV) with pleasure. (As if Americans have such refined, sophisticated tastes. We produce most of the crap that is on, unfortunately, although I must say, New Zealand gives us a run for our money.)

I myself relish these times when the power is out and the TV is silent. I smile at my African mother, attempting to repeat whist butchering her words. My host brother reads what looks like it might be the classifieds by the light of the candle. Then just as suddenly as it began, our moment of solitude in the candlelight is over. The return of power has been signaled by the light in the kitchen flickering on, and my host brother jumps up to turn on the TV, and my host mom grooves in her chair as the music video for Usher’s “Love in the club” comes on. They each do a little dance of joy as the raunchier part of the rap interlude comes on to what is already not the cleanest of songs. I don’t think it translates.