The dining room: lots of natural light everywhere, we don't use any lights all day.
Well, the power just went out again at 7pm, after coming back on only 10 minutes ago. This happens relatively rarely, less than once a week. For the developing world, that's not outrageous. We're talking a capital city where the tap water passes NO tests for water safety, even in the rich enclave.
Oh, and the lights just came back on again.
It's interesting to walk down the streets during a blackout and see who has a generator. Pretty easy, the rest of the houses are pitchblack. Not even any streetlamps on.
You can see who are the haves and the have-nots in this elite neighbourhood, the Caisse (the cash register or cash box). One house with huge walls and big metal garage doors will have lights everywhere, and you can hear the generator running. Perhaps for security purposes, many houses even have normal fluorescent tubes mounted on the outside of the walls, without any protection from the weather.
Strangely, the UN compound kittycorner to us does NOT have a generator which seems odd. They seem to have money for lots of guards, and more than one big black shiny SUV. Maybe it's just the business tycoons who can fork out for that. No, wait, I saw today that my school's headteacher (principal) has a generator in the carport.
I imagine that the more typical homes outside are in a way better prepared. They would be used to this and have candles and kerosene lanterns. That was the case in the one Togolese house I've been in when the power went out.
This is the last evening of the midterm break and I can't believe it's over. We rested lots and recuperated from various ailments, but didn't do anything big. Today we babysat for our headteacher again, who has been laid up with sciatica for two weeks. The two kids, adopted in Swaziland, are 4 and 2. Very nice and easy to handle, although the boy tends to be quite bossy sometimes. We all went to the school club swimming pool where we got royally sunburned, then to the poolside restaurant for a lunch of either crepes or frites (French fries).
Then back to the house where the boy and I did a bit of gardening. Well, mainly harassing ant colonies that are eating all our efforts to grow sunflowers and zuccini squash.
And the headteacher was treated with 'pranic healing' a sort of aura-cleansing process, which she admitted has seemed to help her twice now despite enormous skepticism.
On the way home we ran into about 10 of the senior girls who had arrived back from Nigeria. they were excited to see us, but I think it was mainly to play with the cute little boy (the littler one, not me).
Well, must go make dinner, which will likely be mashed potatos and some sort of squash dish.
Bonne nuit
Now we have a picture to replace our imaginings of your house, inside and out. More please.
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