Powerful

Two of the eight generators in Kigoma continue to limp along, making the evenings exceptionally dark here – unless you live in my part of town.

At a neighborhood meeting last Friday, my neighbors and I met to revisit how effective the generator has been for our neighborhood, and whether the restricted number of hours is enough to give us an adequate supply of water. One of my neighbors mentioned that she thought someone had visited the power company to find out why our neighborhood was so powerless when, it was implied, so many people in our neighborhood are seemingly powerful.

“That doesn’t seem fair,” I said, “we already have a generator.” Many people in town can’t afford these contraptions. Shouldn’t the priority for power go to the people who are totally without, rather than those who have a generator but would prefer to save money on fuel?

For the past couple of nights, we have had power nearly every hour that I have been home – and apparently throughout the night as well. This morning my front porch was scattered with the carnage of bugs that had been attracted to our porch light during the night.

The divide between the haves and the have-nots is always underscored in times of scarcity; times when the haves can afford to pay a premium to access what is left of a resource. Perhaps I am oversensitive to the idea of my neighborhood getting what one friend said is “our fair share.” But I am terrified at the thought that one of my neighbors might have greased a palm to help ensure that we get more than our fair share, because there is nothing fair about that.

I curled-up to read a book last night at ten o’clock, guilt-ridden at the thought of the many families that had spent the evening without the light from a single bulb, while lights blazed in every room in my neighborhood; feeling a little ashamed that I lived in an area that has so many provisions and yet seems so unprepared for shortages; but knowing that at any moment I, too, could be hurled back into the dark.