Power cuts are a pretty regular occurrence in Nairobi. Everyone tells you it’s not a problem because the vast majority of apartment blocks and offices have back up generators. You get used to your computer dying on you midway through doing something important (Facebook/Skype etc.), being plunged into darkness while you’re cooking and working by the light of the gas ring or if you are really unlucky getting stuck in a 6 feet by 6 feet lift with 37 other people (people here are not great respecters of personal space!).
The first time it happened to me I was in the office and the ever reliable Kyalo was on hand to fire up the office generator. This thing looks like it has been thrown together from parts rescued from car crashes bound together with bits of string and wire. Little did I know that the back up generator is housed right next to my office. Even if I had been completely deaf I would have known Kyalo had kicked this beast into life – the vibrations started my phone travelling across my desk, plaster fell from the roof and I swear a filling came loose! It is like trying to work in a Formula One pit lane while the Rolling Stones are simultaneously playing another farewell concert. I have never experienced anything as loud in my life but that was only half the fun. Within about 30 seconds the thick, acrid, black smoke started seeping through the office. Eyes streaming and ears ringing I asked Kyalo how long the power was usually off for, ‘Only two or three hours usually,’ he smiled. Needless to say not much work gets done when we have a power cut and I usually clear off somewhere to do something more productive than contract tinnitus and lung disease!
Back at the apartment if the power goes the modern technology is far more advance and a huge green generator kicks in almost instantaneously. I know this because the first time it happened was in the dead of night and it fired up like jumbo jet outside my bedroom window. Thankfully once in full flow it settles down to a deafening hum similar to a cross channel ferry. Amazing what you get used to but now I hardly notice it when it comes on, apart from the fact the initial blast usually wakes me up. I can usually nod off just in time for the bloody bloke from the mosque wailing his head off that it is time I went to pray – needless to say I have yet to take up his very kind offer but he keeps trying, morning, noon and night!
The last time the power went off for some reason the generator didn’t come on so after about 20 minutes I headed for the shopping centre and decided to go to the cinema. I was about five minutes late for the film, five minutes that nearly cost me my life.
I found the screen I was looking for and went through the doors and was plunged into pitch blackness. Usually in cinemas there is some sort of low level light on the floor or the dim glow from the fire exit sign so you can see where you are going, here there was nothing. Fortunately the film started just as I tripped over the first step but the screen was pretty dark and I still could see only about six inches in front of my face. I felt my way up a few stairs and decided to grab the nearest seat. Now in my defence it was very dark, the screen was dark and all the people were very dark but the poor woman who I sat on wasn’t really in the mood for my excuses, the bloke she was with even less so! It didn’t help that I thought it was very funny and couldn’t help but laugh as I apologised profusely. I genuinely didn’t have a clue there was anybody there and was in stitches as I extricated my backside from her lap. I couldn’t make out the bloke’s facial expression but as my vision adjusted could see that his eyes had narrowed menacingly and they were also about six inches above the level of mine so rather than ask to join them in a more formal manner decided to bugger off to another row a long way away pretty quickly.
The next time the generator packs up I will now go for the far safer option of reading a book by the light of my new torch!
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