Sometimes this week, it has felt like we’re in America! Well, almost.

After three days without power, yesterday the power came back on in our apartment! The enchiladas we’d been waiting to cook for two days got cooked, and we watched Garfield in French for Friday night entertainment. Also this week, we got a new table/counter/shelf in our kitchen that is SO NICE, especially compared to the tiny table we had that was taken up by the water filter and electric oven (about the size of a toaster oven) with two hot plates on top.  The new kitchen setup is awesome! AND we both had hot showers last night! (That’s a first.)

When I stayed in Zambia, we were often without power, but it was at least on somewhat of a schedule. Here, we had no idea that they were going to do major work on a power substation near our house and only on the third day we found out why we’d been without! When we first arrived, I had low expectations that were mostly surpassed – except for the crazy flick on/off seven times a night that just feels like someone at the electric company must be playing with our minds.

During the 72 hours without power, I realized there are only a few essential needs for electricity in my mind. First, the fridge. If I knew we’d be without power, I would have emptied it and done without yogurt for the time being. But as it was full of leftovers, cheese, a box of milk and frozen meat, I actually lost sleep worrying about if the food was going to spoil. The other essential is the fan – which, by awesome invention, has a battery that gets charged and can run without power for a few hours. But it’s purpose is to keep the buzzing mosquitoes away from my head during the night. Mosquitos here don’t carry malaria (the elevation here is too high for those kinds of mozzies.) but they do still live according to many African fables and enjoy driving me crazy by hanging out near my ear. Unfortunately, the battery doesn't last through the night and I usually wake up as soon as it stops running.

I woke up really grumpy a second time this week and realized these two things were not worth losing sleep over and having a bad day, but I’m still quick to roll my eyes when another Westerner in town worries about if the place they’re moving to will have less reliable power than the current lodging. “Of course you won’t be satisfied with the power there!” I think. Even in the nice part of town where the expats live, what I call “suburbia”, the power isn’t satisfactory, so just don’t expect that it’s going to be reliable, and you won’t be disappointed! So goes my reasoning.

Who could be grumpy with this cute kid around?! Our pastor's son, Beniyah

It was a year ago that I first heard about this position and in a “why not apply?!” moment, started the journey, and now we’ve been in Congo for more than seven months. Yesterday, my 3 year old niece asked my sister if they can come over to our house, and it just kills me. BUT I must confess that there are perks such as homemade cinnamon raisin bagels (thanks to our awesome “domestique”) and locally grown coffee this morning.