Electricity---or the Lack Thereof

In Senegal, as in much of Africa, the electricity is undependable. During our first three weeks the electricity has been off more than it has been on! One of the main problems with that is that it is extremely hot, and fans seem like a necessity! Of course, there is no airconditioning, so one must keep windows open, but when the air is not stirring, the heat is oppressive. The highest temperature has probably been in the low 90's, but the humidity is high. Sweat drips in puddles when sitting still!

During our 4th week one evening we noticed several fires along the road and in the road on our way back to the apartment. Some were old tires that were on fire; many people seemed to be near the roadways as if a public event was taking place. The next day we found out that there had been demonstrations to protest the lack of electricity. Because of the demonstrations, the president of Senegal obtained a loan or a grant from France for seventy million dollars to pay the electric bills. After that, the electricity was on most of the time. We really did appreciate fans!

One method of purchasing electricity is similar to a debit card. We were not aware that our apartment electricity was paid for that way. We later learned that our apartment was the only one in the building paid this way. One day our electricity went off, and we assumed it was a general electrical failure as usual. Sometimes the problem was the fuse to our apartment, but this time that was not the trouble. We looked out our window at our nearest neighbors who also had dark windows. For nearly four days we complained about our electricity failure without result. When our we saw those nearest neighbors at a church service later, they said they had been out of town for the weekend and that electricity should be working. With their assistance, we discovered our electricity debit card purchase has simply run out of money. They helped us purchase more electricity and restore the power to our refrigerator and fan. We had lost about a four day supply of food because we did not know how the system worked.

Here is one photo showing electric lines in the city.

Some businesses have portable generators to use when the electricity goes out, but most do not. The generators are used to power equipment that is necessary to the business. Stores that use cash registers or refrigerators must have generators. When a grocery store near our apartment would loose electricity, the generators did not power the cash register. In that store, every item sold had to be entered in a ledger by the bar code number so it could be accounted for when electricity returned. This made shopping slow.

The following shows the generator at the church building. (It was out of fuel up until the last week of our time in Senegal.) We never saw it in use. The small refrigerator they had provided at the church building was only to be used for cooling water or other drinks; the electricity was not dependable enough for keeping food items.