Power Issues

Friday we took Louisa Duke with us and drove to Livingstone to pick up Meagan Hawley. Meagan had returned to the US in January when she learned that her baby niece had a terminal illness. She stayed in Oklahoma City with her brother and sister-in-law and helped with the care of baby Harper until this week. She was due to arrive on Friday afternoon. We had decided that we would spend Friday night in Livingstone to help her ease back into African life (and give ourselves a little break, too). I had managed to find a lodge with rooms available, even though we were booking at the last minute on a holiday weekend, so we thought we were set.

We drove into town around noon and found the lodge, thinking we would check in before we went to the airport. Then the first of many surprises hit us. The lodge had no record of our reservations, and they did not have rooms for us. We explained that we had our reservations confirmed on Wednesday, but there were no rooms and we had to give up. Our first thought was that since it was a holiday weekend we would not be able to find any other place and we would just have to return to Namwianga that afternoon. I suggested that we try one place—one that I had not been able to find an e-mail address for and had not checked earlier.

At that lodge, I explained our plight to one of the two desk clerks while the other one talked on the phone. The first clerk said flatly that they had no rooms, so I turned to leave. Just then the other clerk hung up her phone and called for me to come back. It seems that someone who had reserved two rooms for the night had had car trouble and wouldn’t be coming. We could have the rooms—at a price slightly less than we were to have paid at the first lodge.

Now that we had lodging arranged, we headed for the airport to get Meagan. Her flight was due in at 12:50 but finally arrived an hour later. Just as she came through the terminal, the electricity went off. The electricity stayed off in most of the city for the next eight hours. We did some grocery shopping at the new grocery store in town that managed to stay open with generators for power. We found a restaurant with power on for dinner and then returned to our darkened lodge and sat by candlelight as we got caught up on Meagan’s news and activities. As we got ready to go to bed at 10:30 the electricity came on again!

On Saturday we had made appointments for haircuts at 11:00. We showed up at 11:00—just as the power went off again. The hairdresser said the salon was too dark and she couldn’t help us. We headed for another grocery store to try to get the items we couldn’t find in the other one, and arrived to find it closed due to the power outage. By now we were ready to get some lunch and head back to Namwianga. Subway was the only place open and they were only serving salads since they couldn’t bake their bread. We got our salads, choosing cheese instead of risking meat that had spent several hours without adequate refrigeration.

We made it back to Namwianga and were thrilled to find the electricity on. However, we had received an e-mail from the American ambassador’s office that the entire country of Zambia should prepare for power outages from 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. on Sunday while the main power station at Kariba Dam was being inspected. I stayed up late Saturday night and got up early on Sunday to make sure I had Easter dinner prepared so that we could eat without electricity. As I write this on Sunday evening, we have had power all day. We never know what will happen next over here. It keeps our life interesting.