Peeing refrigerators and other facts of life

My hosts keep pointing out things I might want to talk about in my blog.  Hence, peeing refrigerators, which I image sounds pretty unappetizing.  Today is day 13 without power. Gas is expensive here, about $8 a gallon, and very expensive given the average wage paid in Congo.  One must be judicious about when and how long to run a generator. At our house, it is being run in the morning for 4- 5 hours, enough to charge laptops and telephones, and again for about 3 hours in the evening, which provides lights (sundown is around 6 PM, no long lingering spring/summer evenings like in the US this time of year) and again, the power to recharge laptops if needed. An unexpected expense – costly for a family (although most would not have a generator) and eating into the profits of businesses. So the refrigerator’s freezer is now more or less the refrigerator for keeping things cold.  It seems to be continually defrosting, and small rivulets of water trickles over the kitchen floor…  Ah, a peeing refrigerator.

Yes, a long haul on the electricity, although there are rumors that power is coming back soon. There were even rumors that this was announced on the radio, although I am not sure those rumors should get any more credence. That was three days ago. There are a number of stories as to what happened. No official explanation and no one seems upset that an explanation was not forthcoming, but the most credible story is that a man threw a chain over electrical wires to short them out so he could steal the copper wiring without harming himself. Unfortunately for all of Bunia, he did not target ancillary transmission wires. He shorted out primary wires coming out of the hydroelectric plant, which fried some major plant equipment.

Even without power, life goes on here and no on hardly mentions it, except us ex-pats. I try to take an hour walk every day and the sound of humming generators is heard everywhere. The schools are open and the children sing, people sit in their douka, selling wares…   But keeping food safe to eat is a concern.  It is not hot here, only about 80 degrees during the day, but the temperature never varies much, and it is humid (in spite of no rain!), so mold grows easily. The Witmers always kept everything in the refrigerator, but that is a feeble option now, and food is spoiling quickly. The WItmer’s will decommission the fridge for their time away, so unless the electricity comes back on, I will be without refrigeration come Friday.  And given the track record with power, I would want to clean out and turn off the fridge too if I were going to be away for three months.  The last thing they need when they come back in September is a moldy fridge.

 I am a bit more concerned about the generator, which is not working well. It has been out for repairs twice, and it will be hard to do my project if I cannot charge my laptop.  The school’s Quickbooks program is older (2007), but it is the last version produced in French so they cannot upgrade. It cannot run on a system higher than XP.  I have it loaded on a school XP, but the battery life is only about 2 hours, so recharging (or plugging it in to a power source) is critical.

I haven’t really been given a full tour of Bunia, but have accompanied either Dana or Ted on a few errands, and I meander around when I take my walks.  Since USB is located in the heart of the city, I have a pretty good idea of the layout of the land.  Dana was taking some of the thermal rolls I brought over in the suitcases to the central hospital, so I got to see what the main government hospital looks like. Rwankola Hospital is so much nicer!  The main hospital was build back in the colonel era, well-built and still standing, large and laid out for a tropical climate. But it was meager and sparse and in need of a major refurbishing. So many women outside cooking and washing their clothes and bed sheets, caring for their sick relations.  No running water, no bathrooms. We walked through the pediatric ward, and its intensive care does not even have oxygen, let alone any monitoring equipment. Dana said that when it is really crowded, they put two people to a bed!  It probably made a stronger impression on me because of my own medical forays to the hospital during the past couple of years, but honestly, it was hard to see this and not be moved.  We dropped off the rolls at the lab, and I saw the blood bank.  Four pints of blood total for the entire hospital.

Today I saw a large tractor shovel like machine spreading dirt on the road, smoothing out the holes and gullies a bit. Personally, I wonder if the Governor of the Province, who came to Bunia to see about the power problem, was taken aback by the roads, and ordered something to be done. Dana said they do this periodically, but the dirt is soft and  lasts only until the rain comes. Of course, no rain in sight right now.  The few main roads they ‘fixed’ today were extremely dusty.  And more dangerous, as the motorcycles can get up to 30 (kilometers, about 25 miles an hour), which is the speed limit, although until today, I hadn’t seen anyone able to go that fast.  There are so many motorcycles and they weave and bobble. There is no left side or right side of the road for any driver, you drive where you can navigate. But the people are so resourceful, transporting even full size sofas on those motorcycles.

Okay, next time, maybe I will talk about the university.  Different than America, to be sure, and my hat is off to the students.

 

PS Internet service is simply not good enough to put in pictures at the moment. So sorry, as I have some good ones and a picture is worth a thousand words.