Saving the planet with power cuts?

As expected our load shedding schedule has been increased from 3 hours per day, 3 times a week to 3 hours every day. We will probably receive details of the exact timings tomorrow but we the last 3 days have been 0530-0830 (Fri), 2200-0100 (Sat) and 1700-2000 (Sun - that's now, I'm typing by torchlight). I think that means it will be 1000-1300 here tomorrow although it will be a different schedule at work. Not too bad - that's only 21 hours a week. The bad news is that Nepal Electricity Authority say this will increase to 40 hours a week in February, i.e. could start from next week. This will then become a real problem at work, we might need to think about relying less on our spreadsheets in favour of good old fashioned manual records. E-mails also seem to have become a problem in the last few days - I guess there is always someone in the Internet Service Providers chain that has a power cut and their back-up supplies don't last 3 hours. Hey-ho - maybe it would be less frustrating to know, like in many VSO placements in rural Africa, that there will only be electricity for a couple of hours a day, at least that way you don't become dependent on it for computers and e-mails. The positive side of the power cuts is our electricity bill should be lower. My headline is nonsense I think since over 90% of Nepal's electricity is hydro generated so I presume has no impact on the environment.

 

Enough whinging about trivia, of more concern is that political unrest has bubbled over in the south of Nepal with demonstrations resulting in some deaths which in turn fuel more demonstrations. There are now curfews in 3 cities, 2 of which have VSO volunteers. Life is pretty tough for them and there is no obvious end in sight because there is no clear cut leadership to talk with government and resolve their issues. Although the violence is unlikely to have any direct impact on life in Kathmandu, there is a real risk that it will disrupt the overall peace process - the UN peace mission boss has already expressed concerns.

 

I'm embarassed to say that whilst our colleagues down south were stuck in their houses, we've had a really decadent day with roast beef lunch at the British Embassy club (using the tickets we won at the pub quiz a month or so ago) followed by a tea and cakes (yummy chocolate log) party to say farewell to a departing volunteer. We are both well stuffed and sitting in the dark letting it go down is probably a good thing. An hour left of load shedding and 20 mins battery left in my laptop so I'll stop now and see whether e-mail works.

 

Cheers

Roshan