Overall, life in Malawi is good. I live in a beautiful home and have a delightful housekeeper who takes care of me. I am able to easily participate in activities on the weekend like take beautiful bike rides or hike in the mountains. I can drink the tap water. My work is interesting. My favorite restaurant in town has silky smooth hazelnut gelato, which brings me great joy. Dimming the shine of all these good things, though, is ESCOM, the Electricity Supply Corporation of Malawi.
Malawi is poorly electrified. Only 11% of the country has power at all, 42% of dwellers in towns (like me) but only 4% of people living rurally. The main source of electricity in the country is hydroelectric, generated from four large and many smaller power stations. That sounds great (Green Energy!) until something happens to one or more of the stations and then……it’s not. In January 2022, Cyclone Ana struck Malawi. The staff working at the Kapichira hydroelectric power station, the largest in the country, failed to divert water from the dam’s turbines. This destroyed them. Kapichira was supplying 23% of the country’s power. Now it is supplying zero. The cost to get the station back online was $60 million USD and the work would take 6 months. Most of you know that Malawi is a poor country. So, no repairs.
Only one in 25 Malawians living rurally has this luxury. For most, every day is a struggle to find wood or charcoal to light their homes and cook food.
This resulted in “load shedding,” where the electricity supply to residential areas (like mine) is shut off for 10 hours per day. Two out of three days we have no power during breakfast. Two out of three days we have no power during dinner and early evening. When one is accustomed to having lights, charging items, cooking on a stove, and having a functional refrigerator, this was challenging. For the first few months I toughed it out. I purchased three small solar lanterns for dim night lighting, ate peanut butter and banana sandwiches for dinner, and went to bed very early. After 4 months, this got old.
My landlord, fortunately, is very kind. She had an inverter installed. An inverter has large rechargeable batteries that charge when the power is on. When there is no external power supply, the batteries allow use of the overhead lights and some outlets. Unfortunately, an inverter does not power anything that draws a lot of electricity such as a refrigerator, stove, oven, microwave, electric kettle, toaster, or even a coffee grinder. To rescue myself from a life of PBB sandwiches, I purchased a countertop gas cooktop. This has two burners and is connected to a gas cylinder. It is ugly, but at least I can have hot food for dinner the two out of three nights that we do not have power at dinnertime. None of this is optimal, but it is my life.
In June 2022, the President announced that the World Bank was loaning Malawi the funds to repair Kapichira. Inexplicably, work has still not begun. I suppose I should be happy I even have electricity. Only one in 25 Malawians living rurally has this luxury. For most, every day is a struggle to find wood or charcoal to light their homes and cook food.
