The power outage that began yesterday at 7 AM ended today at 3 PM. It was not dumsor (load shedding, rolling blackouts) but a transformer that failed. None of us slept well. And, we lost some food in the fridge, including leftovers, yoghurt, milk, hamburger, butter, cheese, and eggs. (I estimate about 250 cedis.)
Early this morning, Tracy went to the Institute of African Studies (IAS) to take advantage of their generator and internet. (Commonwealth Hall’s generator is still not working due to the ongoing dispute about who should buy its fuel.) I brought all of our phones and computers to IAS to be charged. Less than five minutes after I plugged them in, the generator quit, and IAS became no different from the rest of campus. Powerless. Tracy moved to International House, and I took our stuff back to the dark flat.
We all lost our cool at one time or another, including Tracy who was under time pressure to plan the upcoming trip to the Volta region and Catherine who melted into 30 minutes of tears this afternoon. Tracy remarked that almost everything that could go wrong did go wrong and that the last three days (with sicknesses, power outage, and heat) were enough to make her want to quit and go home. (This from the woman who absolutely LOVES Africa.) Through it all, Cynthia has seen the extremes of our life in Ghana: the fun and relaxation of paragliding and Brenu Beach, the challenges of history, and the hard and demoralizing slog of 32 hours without power. Thankfully, most days are somewhere between.
Tonight, with little remaining food, we went for pizza at Pinocchio, a final meal before Cynthia departs early tomorrow morning. And, Mark went to see a movie with a few of the Calvin students.
I expect that we’ll all sleep well tonight.
—Matt
