Most of you are probably familiar with “Hakuna matata,” Swahili for “No worries,” made famous by the Lion King. Two Swahili words I’m getting to know well are “Hakuna umeme.” They mean “There is no electricity.” Monday there was no power at Canon Andrea Mwaka and today there was no power here at Msalato. The Tanzanian power company, Tanesco, is building some new plants for Dodoma. One should be online by December and the other by June. These will help eliminate the rolling blackouts, but in the meantime, since almost all of the Tanzanian power is from hydro-electric power and it hasn’t rained as much as the historical average for the past 10 years, there isn’t enough water in the reservoirs to produce at the required rate. So we get 12-hour rolling blackouts.

It affects those of us who are slaves to technology more than the average villager who doesn’t even have power. Most people here cook on charcoal fires or kerosene stoves and use kerosene lamps in the evening. Electricity is a luxury that most cannot afford. So it’s hard to complain too much about not having it, when the majority of the families in the area don’t have it at all.