Looks like a scary way to plug something in, doesn’t it?! I was sitting at my desk at Nice View one day and the welders were fixing my window. They set up their welding machine and handed me these wires. I held them in my hand and must have had a dumbfounded look on my face because the two workers pointed to the electrical socket. Yeah right, I thought, this is something I want to do, plug in two wires to a 240 volt socket! So I handed the wires back to them and shook my head no – saying to myself, they must think I’m either a crazy mzungu (white person) or asking for a death wish!
The one worker came into the office to plug in the wires. Now, to plug these in you have to stick a ball point pen cap into the top hole to push a piece of metal down so the wires will slip into the bottom two holes! I’m not big on electricity anyway and this was even more of a deterrent! I’m ok with a real plug – three prongs to fit nicely into the socket, but bare wires aren’t for me!
The workers were lucky this day, we actually had electricity! We can anticipate the electricity going out at least a couple of times during the week, especially on Thursdays when that seemed to be a planned outage day for Tala. Then I would use the computer, phone and camera until the batteries died and not recharge them until the next day. It was frustrating when the electricity would suddenly go out, right in the middle of printing or before our phone was recharged but on Thursdays it was relaxing because we would have reading material, sit and chat it forward with tea, walk around the compound watching the classes or going to the market to walk around and talk to neighbors.
We are praying for a reliable source of electricity at Nice View so the kids will have lights in their classrooms for nighttime studying, outdoor lights for safety and walking to the latrine at night, better lighting in the kitchen, setting up a computer lab, printers etc. We see the Lord using Nice View as a hub of activity for the area – holding bible studies, church, after school activities, craft classes etc.
Amazing what a little electricity can do isn’t it?