Lightning and Electricity at Waterford

Weather is pretty crazy in Swaziland, and changes hourly. It's not ever an issue, except when we get these severe lightning storms, as the school is located on top of a mountain, and oftentimes in the clouds.

Last night, we started having another lightning storm. This literally happens all the time. People keep on saying that stuff gets hit by lightning all the time, but I never believed them. Rumor has it that one of the bus drivers was hit by lightning, and only survived because of something to do with his dreads. I have no proof of that story, but it goes uncontested around here.

Anyways, we start having this lightning storm, and the power starts flickering. It's a very easy pattern to follow - flash outside, power goes out, comes back on, and cue the thunder. Wait a couple seconds, and repeat. Now, we're sitting in the common room, and I'm cheering for the power to be totally out, just because it's kind of a boring Wednesday night, and that would add some excitement. Lightning stuck the parking lot, as in literally a bolt touched the ground, but apparently that's not exciting around here, and would be stuck into the "everyday occurrence" category of the excitement scale.

Right after I say that, the power goes out. That was at ten o'clock last night. While the generator is on for the IT center, so the internet is up, hostel still doesn't have power, and hasn't for the last fourteen hours.

Quite the adventure, although apparently this happens all the time so we each have a solar lamp, and nobody even blinks an eye when the power goes out. The only thing that changes is that some of the guys tried to scare people as they walked into the blackened common room last night, which didn't go over so well.

But yeah, the only major issue we've had without power is that we can't make toast, which is usually a major part of the diet, but we still have bread, so we're just eating that. It's kind of awesome how easily a whole school can make do with only electricity in one building. We're just that awesome.