[note] Mar. 28. 2010

It's been quite a while since the last update.

Things had been quite difficult and exhausting as the blackout continued, but after a long absence. I'm happy to come back to this blog with a great news.

The power came back!!!

It actually came back on the night of March 8th, about two weeks after the official announcement date which was Feb. 20th. It took them nearly three months to fix it up.

January went by quite slowly as I survived day to day without power.

Basically I couldn't do anything at home after 7 o'clock in the evening but to stay quiet and keep my movement to minimum to avoid being soaked with sweat. So I went out more than ever to get some breeze, have coffee and chat with the neighbors at the coffee vendor.

Water kept coming out once every two days. I had two 20L buckets to store water, but bought another one to make sure I got enough water to get through the days.

This was also the time when people started making wild speculations about the power recovery. It was evident that the people were very skeptical about the government announcement. Although I still had more faith than most of the people that it'd be back sometime in the end of Feb, it was still quite daunting to hear people say the power wasn't going to come back till 2013 when the USAID was planning to replace the entire weathered cable between the island and the mainland. Some people were a little more optimistic, saying that the power would be back by June when the 2010 World Cup would be taking place in South Africa, so that they could watch the games on TV.

Then came February.

Lucky for me, the school had a regular exam break between Feb. 5th and Mar. 1st. So I decided go over to the mainland to escape the heat and inconvenience for a while. I also had another reason to go over there, that is our semi-annual teaching skills workshop. This time we had our workshop at a secondary school in Dodoma, the legislative capital of the country. (Many people think Dar es Salaam is the capital, but it's actually this relatively small, arid town at the center of the country. I guess it's not really convincing when almost all the politicians including the president and the bureaucrats live in Dar and come to Dodoma only when the parliament is in session.) So I stayed in Dodoma for about 10 days to help out the organizers and give a demonstration lesson.

Days in February went by quickly as I was anxiously counting down the days till we get the power back. The announced date, Feb. 20th, came with a disappointment, however. I was in Dar es Salaam, getting ready to go back to Zanzibar and one of my friends told me that the government pushed the date up to the 28th.

Fair enough. The 28th came and of course, the power was still off.

This was around the time when, according to one of my friends, different government officials went on the radio or had press conferences to announce some random recovery date without any hard evidence. Despite of all this, most of the locals seemed nonchalant about what we'd call a major crisis if occurred back home. I was really impressed with the way the ordinary people handled the situation: no panic, riots or increased violence or crimes at night as far as I knew.

After all, Mar. 9th seemed to be the next hopeful date.

The government announced that they'd conduct a bunch of test-runs in the afternoon of the 8th and if everything worked out, the power would be back by the evening of that day.

Well, I was at home around 7 o'clock when it was just getting completely dark out. Just like I'd done for the past few months, I was getting ready to go out to the coffee vendor. When I opened the door, a light struck my eyes and I heard my neighbors screaming and cheering up!

Finally, the power came back! As I was walking to the coffee place, everyone else was on the street, walking to places where they could watch TV, driving a pick-up loaded with guys singing and shouting, or simply walking around and celebrating the recovery. The life came back to the way it was.

Well, not quite. Since the power came back, we've been having some temporary blackouts daily, and every time we do, I get chills. 6 months of service left and going through another 3 months of darkness isn't appealing.

Looking back, this was durable but certainly not something I've enjoyed. Then again, we have volunteers working in places where they don't get the power at all. Much respect for them.

Again, what I thought impressive was the way the locals handled the situation. I realized this was actually a big deal when I was listening to the BBC world service and on the hourly news update on Mar. 9th, they reported about the Zanzibar blackout sandwiched by reports about a massacre in Nigeria and US vice president Joe Biden's visit to Isreal. Although the life was hard, I didn't think what I'd just gone through was worthy of the world's attention.

All this is attributed by the relaxed and peaceful atmosphere maintained by the Zanzibarites.

And now they are fully back to life.