IKWYT: How Do I Manage to Live with the Power Outages?

I know what you're thinking, how do I manage to live with the power outages?

Let me paint a picture for you: You just finished a pleasant day at work and you walk back to your house, passing by plenty of cows and screaming donkeys along the way. Once you arrive home, you change into your workout clothes to head out on a run filled with more cows and screaming donkeys. Also, goats. It ends up being an okay run, and you make it back home right as the sun is setting in the African sky. Unfortunately, the second you step back into your house, the electricity and water goes out across the entire town.

You are now standing in a pitch black living room, dripping in sweat, smelly, and hungry. You're not sure what to do at this point, because there is no telling how long the power will be out for. Will it be 5 minutes or 5 hours? You have a lantern you could use inside the house, but you're already starting to see the neighbors come out of their houses to be in the last minutes of light outside, so you end up heading back outside to be with them. They make fun of you for having a red face from running, but it's fine, I guess.

Power outages are frequent in my region, and even more frequent in my town. Some things seem to trigger it, such as if the wind blows too hard, if it gets too hot, or if someone sneezes. We experience a power outage about once a week to some degree or capacity. This can look like the power tripping several times over the course of an hour to it being off for almost 14 hours. In cases like the latter, an official notice will be released from the government stating that a scheduled power outage will occur (See the above public notice). Please note: it NEVER comes back on at 7pm. It comes back on at 8:40pm. This notice is then passed friend to friend to deliver the news, and you just hope that you're part of that friend group. However, most often, power (and water) outage means that it will be off for about 45 minutes.

Because of its frequency, we often find ourselves frozen in weird positions, like being in the middle of a grocery store line, using the printer at work, loading carrots into a hot pan, showering, or attending a Zoom meeting. Let's take a look at that first example. I don't have plenty of food on me in the way that is expected in America. Generally, I buy the exact food I need just for that week so that I don't risk it going bad. Want to know what's in my kitchen right now? Two tomatoes, three onions, four bananas, one yogurt package, a bag of carrots, six apples, pap, and a box of corn muffin mix that didn't quite make it into my Thanksgiving Feast. What's in your kitchen?

So when you're standing in line to buy your groceries, and you know for a fact that you don't have food at home and the power goes out, what would you do? Do you continue to stand in the dark and hope the power comes back on in 5 minutes? Do you walk the kilometer home and then return when the power comes back? Or do you decide that you'll just eat another day?

But things are only as bad as you let them be. The outages teach you to remain prepared, like making sure there is always filtered water in the house or keeping all of your devices and power blocks charged. Procrastination is not your friend, so you are quick to do your chores and clean when the lights are on. During the full day outages, neighbors meet each other outside and friends will meet at the river. It's not all bad, and like most things in life, it took a bit of practice to get the hang of it. At my worst, I spent my Sunday with a dead phone eating raw onions, but after a moment like that, you make sure it doesn't happen again, and you get better at it.