Saturday, October, 17.
To day there was electricity when we awoke, but it went off around 7:30 AM. It came back on around 11 while we were working in the library, so I went to the house to cook. It stayed on, so we were able to have a hot American style meal for lunch, to which we invited Verywell. He is the duty tutor this weekend; we thought he would enjoy a hot meal. Later in the afternoon there was a grass fire near the house. What I assume had been started as a controlled burn to clear a field for planting apparently got out of control. It was a very windy day. We were never in any danger because the fire would have run out of fuel before reaching us, but another prong of it appeared to be in danger of spreading to the main part of the campus. Our neighbors came out to fight it with leafy branches torn off trees, and they enlisted some students as well. The burned over area revealed two stone walls and several piles of stones that he had not known were there. The ground here is very rocky. The rocks seem to be volcanic in origin, but are rather soft. They do no seem to stand up well to vehicles running over them. Speaking of the wind, it would seem to me that the way the wind blows here wind turbines would be a useful supplement to water power for generating electricity. The electricity went off again around 7 PM, and did not come back on until well after we had gone to bed.
Friday, October 16, 2009
Tuesday morning the weather was raw and overcast, as if it were about to rain, but by the time of morning tea all clouds had disappeared and it was sunny for the rest of the day. On Wednesday it looked as if we would actually get rain—the hills to the south were totally obscured and it appeared to be raining there, and in mid afternoon it looked as if a storm were actually heading our way, but once again nothing materialized. There was no electricity for most of Wednesday, except for a couple hours in late afternoon, and then nothing until long after we had gone to bed. It seems that happens whenever we plan an oven meal. As a result Wednesday’s food, for me anyway, consisted entirely of peanut butter and dried fruit. We have now finished cataloging all of the books in the library that are in English. The books in Swahili are a challenge because the library aide’s English skills are not good enough to enable her to explain authors and titles to us. Thursday and Friday we actually had electricity during all of our waking hours.