A DAY WITHOUT POWER: If you’ve lived even a few hours without electricity, you know that it doesn’t take long for the dystopian doom to dominate, for the agitation and rage to seep in to spoil everyone’s mood—and food.
My sweetheart lives in one of the towns affected by the powerful storms that tore through Northwest Indiana a few days ago, ripping ancient trees out of the ground by the roots and knocking out power everywhere.
Long lines started forming at gas stations at all hours of the day and night—traffic snaked and snagged without traffic lights—and the devastation everywhere has been hard to comprehend.
The town is unrecognizable without its ancient trees.
And yet, no one seems too aware of what’s going on unless you’re there or know someone who’s dealing with this uncertainty.
Basic tasks like keeping your phone charged or filling up the tank (or one’s belly) have become the mission of the moment.
When my sweetheart told me about the loud generators roaring all over town, guzzling up so much gas to keep the lights flickering inside, it sent me all the way back to that time in 2009, when I landed in Zanzibar during one of the island’s most notorious blackouts in its history.
No power on the island for three months.
THREE MONTHS.
It was insane and so very difficult.
I’d been planning my trip back there for months before I landed. How did I not realize this was happening? In all our calls, Skypes and texts, the guy I was going back for never said a word about it.
This blackout would go down as one of the most catastrophic injustices in recent memory—when an old underground cable connecting Zanzibar to the national grid had finally broken, after many years of neglect, and a quick fix was not in the cards.
Try to imagine for a moment what it feels like to live in the sweltering tropical heat without electricity for months.
No fans, air conditioning, or refrigeration of any kind.
Cholera infections soared. The incessant roar of generators. Gasoline fumes choking the streets. The stench of rotting garbage piled high in enormous dumpsters. Water shortages. Skyrocketing food prices. Rashes. Rodents.
Misery.
To this day, Zanzibaris remember this time with a mix of pride and disbelief—pride that they survived it—and disbelief that they’d ever had to tolerate it in the first place.
I arrived during one of the busiest weekends of the year, when a huge, annual music festival was taking place, and most guesthouses and hotels in town were completely booked.
Despite the blackout, thousands of tourists had flocked to the island that weekend to hear live music over four nights at the Old Fort—dancing and drinking under a sky packed with stars.
But without power, the mood in town was grim as Stone Town desperately tried to keep unhappy travelers cool and fed.
I’d flown all the way from Chicago to see this man in a place so precarious and unstable, I was sick with doubt.
A sense of dread settled within the pit of me that I might have made the worst decision of my life but I never would have found the words to utter those doubts.
I had just made an enormous leap and was determined to land on both feet.
The power eventually returned to the islands.
I wrote home making it seem like all of this was easy and right.
But to this day blackouts on the islands are a common occurrence—”dark spells” are a part of everyday life.
As more tourists flock the islands, the demand for electricity pushes those undersea cables to the brink, triggering “load shedding” as they shuffle power around. If they don’t shut off power to certain areas, intense heat and pressure could cause grid collapse.
A blackout—even a few hours without electricity—can teach you that you can get used to almost anything—and it’s a lesson I carried with me as I continued to live there for the next decade.
There’s a sense of camaraderie that forms around crisis—a potential for connection and communal care—in the best of times.
You learn to live with candlelight. You remember who you were before the addiction formed with your phone. There’s suddenly time for a book and an open window at night to let the breeze cool you down.
But when I asked my sweetheart how he and his townmates were faring on Day Three of the power outage where he lives in Northwest Indiana, he reported that folks were definitely on edge and lashing out at the gas pump—cutting in line, and such.
When our basic needs are suddenly not so basic but actually extraordinarily hard to acquire, what’s left is a huge question about how each of us copes.
There seems to be a clear correlation between comfort and courtesy.
Many folks in this area were already reeling too close to the edge to show any grace to their neighbors.
My sweetheart said he’s doing fine for now—letting anyone who wants get in front or cut across, who cares.
He’s taken up smoking again, which soothes his stress, and he figures they’re all lining up in the same place anyway, and there’s really nowhere else to go.
My sweetheart lives in one of the towns affected by the powerful storms that tore through Northwest Indiana a few days ago, ripping ancient trees out of the ground by the roots and knocking out power everywhere.
Long lines started forming at gas stations at all hours of the day and night—traffic snaked and snagged without traffic lights—and the devastation everywhere has been hard to comprehend.
The town is unrecognizable without its ancient trees.
And yet, no one seems too aware of what’s going on unless you’re there or know someone who’s dealing with this uncertainty.
Basic tasks like keeping your phone charged or filling up the tank (or one’s belly) have become the mission of the moment.
When my sweetheart told me about the loud generators roaring all over town, guzzling up so much gas to keep the lights flickering inside, it sent me all the way back to that time in 2009, when I landed in Zanzibar during one of the island’s most notorious blackouts in its history.
No power on the island for three months.
THREE MONTHS.
It was insane and so very difficult.
I’d been planning my trip back there for months before I landed. How did I not realize this was happening? In all our calls, Skypes and texts, the guy I was going back for never said a word about it.
This blackout would go down as one of the most catastrophic injustices in recent memory—when an old underground cable connecting Zanzibar to the national grid had finally broken, after many years of neglect, and a quick fix was not in the cards.
Try to imagine for a moment what it feels like to live in the sweltering tropical heat without electricity for months.
No fans, air conditioning, or refrigeration of any kind.
Cholera infections soared. The incessant roar of generators. Gasoline fumes choking the streets. The stench of rotting garbage piled high in enormous dumpsters. Water shortages. Skyrocketing food prices. Rashes. Rodents.
Misery.
To this day, Zanzibaris remember this time with a mix of pride and disbelief—pride that they survived it—and disbelief that they’d ever had to tolerate it in the first place.
I arrived during one of the busiest weekends of the year, when a huge, annual music festival was taking place, and most guesthouses and hotels in town were completely booked.
Despite the blackout, thousands of tourists had flocked to the island that weekend to hear live music over four nights at the Old Fort—dancing and drinking under a sky packed with stars.
But without power, the mood in town was grim as Stone Town desperately tried to keep unhappy travelers cool and fed.
I’d flown all the way from Chicago to see this man in a place so precarious and unstable, I was sick with doubt.
A sense of dread settled within the pit of me that I might have made the worst decision of my life but I never would have found the words to utter those doubts.
I had just made an enormous leap and was determined to land on both feet.
The power eventually returned to the islands.
I wrote home making it seem like all of this was easy and right.
But to this day blackouts on the islands are a common occurrence—”dark spells” are a part of everyday life.
As more tourists flock the islands, the demand for electricity pushes those undersea cables to the brink, triggering “load shedding” as they shuffle power around. If they don’t shut off power to certain areas, intense heat and pressure could cause grid collapse.
A blackout—even a few hours without electricity—can teach you that you can get used to almost anything—and it’s a lesson I carried with me as I continued to live there for the next decade.
There’s a sense of camaraderie that forms around crisis—a potential for connection and communal care—in the best of times.
You learn to live with candlelight. You remember who you were before the addiction formed with your phone. There’s suddenly time for a book and an open window at night to let the breeze cool you down.
But when I asked my sweetheart how he and his townmates were faring on Day Three of the power outage where he lives in Northwest Indiana, he reported that folks were definitely on edge and lashing out at the gas pump—cutting in line, and such.
When our basic needs are suddenly not so basic but actually extraordinarily hard to acquire, what’s left is a huge question about how each of us copes.
There seems to be a clear correlation between comfort and courtesy.
Many folks in this area were already reeling too close to the edge to show any grace to their neighbors.
My sweetheart said he’s doing fine for now—letting anyone who wants get in front or cut across, who cares.
He’s taken up smoking again, which soothes his stress, and he figures they’re all lining up in the same place anyway, and there’s really nowhere else to go.
