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This Little Light

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One of the things I take most for granted in the UK is definitely electricity. In the village we are working in, 85% of homes do not have electricity and those that do, mostly generate it themselves from solar energy. Using the sun as a source of energy is obviously a sustainable way of generating electricity but the issue is that the whole village cannot access mains power and is not part of any national energy grid.
Electricity is not one of the highest priorities for the village, so it is not something we will be working on in the short time that we’re here but it is something that the community could campaign on themselves now that we’ve started developing stronger links with local government bodies. Currently the more urgent issues are access to primary health care and a clean drinking water supply as well as getting the access road to the village paved.
My host home does have electricity, which I’m very grateful for as it gets dark very early, very quickly here. It does mean you can see to do those last minute jobs before bed as well. For me, this means doing some last-minute bits of work, writing in my journal, reading a book or having some free time playing badminton with the boys outside. For my host family, this could mean weighing vegetables to take to market early in the morning or watching a little TV, the news or a dubbed Indian soap opera being the preferred options.
Initially it was quite frustrating that the electricity goes off every night at some point and often at several times during the day as well but we’re not normally at home then. I’ve got used to this now and always make sure that I know where my torch is once it gets dark. Random darkness does force me to be a bit more social some evenings as well since you can’t hide in your room when there are only two rechargeable lamps in the house and an oil lamp is hardly practical whilst sitting under a mosquito net! Yesterday I managed to find a rechargeable torch and lamp combination in Chitalmari market, which has come in pretty handy already.
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