Friendos,
It has been an interesting week here in Africa. Lilongwe suffers from several chronic poverty deficiencies: inconsistent electricity, poor potable water and a three year fuel crisis. This week combined the three in a perfect storm: For three days, there was no running water in the city, of those days 27 hours (at least) the city lost electricity and the fuel crisis is at an all-time high as there are cues up to the gas station nearly a mile long. I navigated these inconveniences in a couple ways: no showers, obviously, so I cleansed myself at my sports club's pool. I wasn't the only person with this idea, after the first day, a kid pooped in the pool and that option was shut down. I luckily stored up enough drinking water in the back of my car to weather the storm, thus I avoided, but witnessed the mosh-pit scene at grocery stores as people fought over even the smallest bottle of water.
The electricity outages were not at their worst, this week and I am well used to them, however, I was in the middle of a meeting with a group of guys putting together a report on soy bean exports (I am working with them as a "consultant") when the power surged and then went out and they lost their entire 72 page report. I could every disapproving high school teacher's voice in my head "this is why you back up your work, Steven..."
And the fuel crisis. Drastically short on fuel and dying to go check out an area where they are producing some rubies, I was jonesing for gas. This turned into a two-day process as I filled up the first 20 liters of my tank with black-market fuel that a friend and I had to go well-outside the city to procure from a very-dicey siphoning of someone's tank. At one point, the guy selling it to us, tried to light a cigarette, lunatic. The rest of my tank was filled by waking up before dawn yesterday after getting a tip on where some gasoline would be arriving that afternoon and leaving my car twenty back in the cue. For visualization, imagine a new ride comes to Disney World, all kids in the surrounding 100 miles are given 20-year-old used Asian export cars and there is limited entry to the ride. The line is a catastrophe of cheap cutting moves, arguments and hundreds of anxious cars. I returned that afternoon at 2, and still waited an hour and a half as people surrounded the cue like vultures. Eventually I got my gas, although I had to bribe the gas attendant to fill it up all the way. I think this is the only place in the world where gas attendant is a lucrative position, except maybe Jersey.
I spent Friday night in Lilongwe partying and Saturday visiting the ruby producers 100 km south of the city. The Lilongwe partying was eye-opening as we went to a true nightclub that was a old tobacco warehouse three stories and fitted out like a laser-tag facility. There were all these cool, structures, padded walls, lasers and loud music and A LOT OF DUDES. We left it for the ex-pat haven "Diplomat's Pub" which is where all the white people hide. You can run, but I find you.
More on the ruby area next week, I gotta finish working on a soy bean presentation to the ministry of agriculture.
Constable Fox
It has been an interesting week here in Africa. Lilongwe suffers from several chronic poverty deficiencies: inconsistent electricity, poor potable water and a three year fuel crisis. This week combined the three in a perfect storm: For three days, there was no running water in the city, of those days 27 hours (at least) the city lost electricity and the fuel crisis is at an all-time high as there are cues up to the gas station nearly a mile long. I navigated these inconveniences in a couple ways: no showers, obviously, so I cleansed myself at my sports club's pool. I wasn't the only person with this idea, after the first day, a kid pooped in the pool and that option was shut down. I luckily stored up enough drinking water in the back of my car to weather the storm, thus I avoided, but witnessed the mosh-pit scene at grocery stores as people fought over even the smallest bottle of water.
The electricity outages were not at their worst, this week and I am well used to them, however, I was in the middle of a meeting with a group of guys putting together a report on soy bean exports (I am working with them as a "consultant") when the power surged and then went out and they lost their entire 72 page report. I could every disapproving high school teacher's voice in my head "this is why you back up your work, Steven..."
And the fuel crisis. Drastically short on fuel and dying to go check out an area where they are producing some rubies, I was jonesing for gas. This turned into a two-day process as I filled up the first 20 liters of my tank with black-market fuel that a friend and I had to go well-outside the city to procure from a very-dicey siphoning of someone's tank. At one point, the guy selling it to us, tried to light a cigarette, lunatic. The rest of my tank was filled by waking up before dawn yesterday after getting a tip on where some gasoline would be arriving that afternoon and leaving my car twenty back in the cue. For visualization, imagine a new ride comes to Disney World, all kids in the surrounding 100 miles are given 20-year-old used Asian export cars and there is limited entry to the ride. The line is a catastrophe of cheap cutting moves, arguments and hundreds of anxious cars. I returned that afternoon at 2, and still waited an hour and a half as people surrounded the cue like vultures. Eventually I got my gas, although I had to bribe the gas attendant to fill it up all the way. I think this is the only place in the world where gas attendant is a lucrative position, except maybe Jersey.
I spent Friday night in Lilongwe partying and Saturday visiting the ruby producers 100 km south of the city. The Lilongwe partying was eye-opening as we went to a true nightclub that was a old tobacco warehouse three stories and fitted out like a laser-tag facility. There were all these cool, structures, padded walls, lasers and loud music and A LOT OF DUDES. We left it for the ex-pat haven "Diplomat's Pub" which is where all the white people hide. You can run, but I find you.
More on the ruby area next week, I gotta finish working on a soy bean presentation to the ministry of agriculture.
Constable Fox
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