Inward Renewal

In our neighborhood, any time we get rain we almost certainly will have a blackout.  It’s just an expected reality of living here, so the quicker one learns to accept it the more tranquil life becomes.  I can say that our family has long ago accepted the frequent power outages, but we still have to have a backup game plan for cooking, baths for the kids etc…  For the better part of a week we haven’t received the predictable afternoon rains, but late this afternoon that all changed.  What started as sprinkles turned into a downpour.  Stan (my father-in-law) and I prepared the grill under a tree and suspended card board above the hot coals until they were glowing hot.  The chicken wings went on and sizzled in the early evening rain to perfection.  By the time Donna (my mother-in-law) and Andrea cooked green beans and mashed potatoes over the petrol camping stove, the house was dark.  But that was okay because we have a huge supply of candles that are ready to go for evenings like this.  The dinner was nice and the food was hot.  Candle light dinners are so commonplace for Andrea and I that we’re not that interested in a candle-lit romantic dinner like we used to be. They’re just another component of evening in Africa.

In several posts now we’ve mentioned how the seasonal rains affect life here.  Electricity power outages are a lot more frequent for us in our area.  So, we’ve pulled out our candle supply and have everything ready to go so that we can see what we’re doing at the drop of a hat.  Ian is interested in the candle glow and we’ve caught him more than once approaching the candle to touch it.  When we reprimand him, he thinks it’s a game as you can see in the pictures below.

For the past month or so I’ve been trying to think ahead about Sunday meal preparations.  I want the day to be as relaxing as possible.  Getting home at 12:30 and scrambling for something to eat hasn’t been the most “relaxing” thing I can think of; so, time for a new resolution – plan ahead.

The crock pot is a wonderful invention as it allows you to think ahead about meals and get preparation out of the way.  The crock pot however, has one fatal flaw…it requires electricity!  This past Sunday morning after making coffee cake and placing it in the oven, I prepared Orange Chicken with Sweet Potatos to go in the crock pot.  I was busy mixing spices, juicing and grating an orange when the electricity went out.  The crockpot meal was ready to cook and my coffee cake was half baked.  We had cold cereal.  I left the crockpot plugged in and turned on in hopes that the electricity would come on while we were at church.

After church I phoned a neighbor who let me know the electricity had just come on in the last 30min.  No crockpot lunch.  We had sandwiches.  By dinner time it was over cooked. booo!

The electricity saga continued…Monday morning the power went out 5 different times for 15min to 1hr 30min each time.  I was trying to do laundry, grrrr.  Tuesday it went out 4 times in the morning for almost an hour each time and then went out again at 4pm and didn’t come back until 9:30pm.  This morning…it went about 5 times.  BUT, I have a wonderful husband who persuaded the powers that be to send an electrician.  It is fixed…for now anyway.