Living in the Dark

I’d heard about load shedding before coming to Nepal, but I didn’t think it’d become such a big deal since I dealt with no power situations in Uzbekistan. I thought, hey, that’s cool… at least Nepal gives out a schedule of when the power cuts will happen. Now, with Nepal facing 16 hours a day without power in KTM (and up to 20 in Hetauda, I hear), looking at the load shedding schedule is actually a little depressing. Seeing how many hours without light (and internet) is nothing to look forward to. We’d be better off if they just showed us the hours when there will be electricity.

Load shedding, or constant blackouts due to insufficient electricity supply, has been changing lives here in Nepal. In my house Sushil Villa, we’re considering a mini generator to power our once fancy and now pointless wireless internet. We’re also considering solar panels, inverters, and UPS back up systems. My work, which is running over 40 computers including the recording studio, is also considering a generator… however, it’s a little late in the game, isn’t it? Considering we knew 16 hours of power cuts a day were staring us in the face a couple months ago.

So what do people do during load shedding?

If you’re at my house, we plan on watching A LOT of DVDs. I will probably watch all of my movies at least 3 times over (on top of the numerous times I’ve already watched them). My roommate Isa and I have been watching Men in Trees, a recently cancelled ABC tv series which will at least take us through the next week or so before we have to find a new series to entertain us during the dark times at Sushil Villa. We just bought these rechargeable LED emergency lanterns and are excited like little kids on Christmas when we stare into the bright, bright lights. The lanterns shine SO bright and are able to light up a whole room (not like regular electricity, mind you, but we’ll take it)… plus it’ll take us off candles – which we seem to go through at least 10 a week. And since Kirill came to visit us last week all the way from Darjeeling, we've now started to use our fireplace. Spasibo, Kirill!

making the best of load shedding with wine, real swiss cheese, and good company. Isabelle, Kirill, Camille, and me. (photo by Kirill)

If you’re at my work, it’s a little more ridiculous. As I’ve mentioned before, I work at an NGO that designs and produces social development radio programming for underserved minority and disadvantaged groups. All of our work is done on computers as we use Adobe Cool Edit software to mix and edit our radio shows. Our recording studio needs electricity for our voice talents to read the dramas our staff writes (on computers) and for our recorded interviews to take place. All the proposals we write are all written on desktop computers (except for me and the Country Director) that need power. So what happens during load shedding hours? A whole lot of nothing. People go to the roof to enjoy the sunshine, have some content meetings, and then just hang out and chat for a good long while. We've had to change our production schedules to coordinate with when there will be power at the office. Some production teams are working on Sundays and are off on Tuesday, while others are coming after lunch and working until dark. I think the most ridiculous thing for me was staying at the office until 7:30pm and sitting in a completely dark room with only 2 faces illuminated by dying laptops and others using their cell phones to read or write notes for the meeting.

But load shedding is affecting all of Nepal... so take my personal examples and multiply it by 29 million (the estimated population of Nepal in July 2008). For having the 2nd highest potential in hydropower, Nepal doesn't seem to be producing as much as it can. In fact, Nepal seems to be forgetting about its hydro potential and turning to burning fossil fuels as a quick fix for the power crisis.

I thought for sure that there would be nationwide strikes when we got put up to 16 hours of load shedding a day... but was surprised that for once, people didn't stage super huge protests. Why not? Instead, Kathmandu has a trash problem (like seriously, trash overflowing and taking up more than half of the road) because a Maoist cut off the leg of someone, so trash wasn't being collected for awhile.

I read in the paper today that the NEA (the state electricity agency) has cut back the load shedding hours to 14. That means TWO extra hours of light! Of course one of those hours is probably in the wee hours of the morning when no one is awake, but I guess we'll take what we can get.

I'm ending this post now, because the electricity is about to go off. Enjoy your electricity, wherever you may be! ;)