STRIKE!

On Friday morning, Jared and I woke up without any power. Now this was not a big deal, as most mornings our power does not turn on until 8:00 or so. What was odd though, was that our water pressure was gone. I usually clean and do a few loads of laundry on Fridays, and luckily I finished cleaning before the water ran out, but by 10:00, the power was not on and I had not been able to do laundry yet. The power outages are not scheduled and it’s not like we can depend on power, but this was the first Friday morning that I had not been able to do laundry. With that and the water issue, I figured something was up, but Jared and I went about our usual chores of walking into the city for some groceries and stopping for to make a withdraw from the bank. As we turned the corner to the bank, Kristi called me and asked if we had heard the news. (Which, no, we had not.) The local electric and water company was on strike indefinitely. The workers were demanding a 60% salary increase and would not turn on the water supply or the power until their demands were met!

Clearly, I freaked out. How would we shower? How would we flush our toilet? How would we clean our clothes? Now, in Ghana, we had very bad water pressure and our upstairs apartment did not have running water most of the time. We had to manually fill the toilet to flush it, we had to bathe out of buckets, and we had to hand wash our clothes. The only difference between Ghana and here though, was that we got our buckets filled downstairs. If the water was out all over the island, then were would we go? To the river, I guess, right?! Its not completely undo-able, but I was a bit nervous about how our daily life would change if the strike lasted long. After our stop at the bank, we went to the store and bought candles, 2 cases of 12, 1.5 liter bottles of water and 2, 3 packs of 5 liter jugs. We took a taxi home (b/c let’s be honest, we can’t carry that amount of water for a 20 minute walk) and unloaded it all into the apartment. While we did this, the ladies in the apartment below us were filling up buckets, bowls, bins, pots and anything else that can hold water, out of a faucet in the wall. I immediately went up to them and asked how they had water and we did not, and I asked if the rumor of the strike was true. They told us that yes, the strike was on and it would last for 5 days, that the water coming out was the end of the city’s well, and of course we could have some too. So, Jared and I filled 4 big bowls, 2 pressure cookers, 1 cooler, and 2 pots full and set them all over the house. This water was the same as the water we usually have, which means its fine for washing dishes, clothes, and our bodies, but not fine for cooking or drinking, so all the bottled water was still useful. However, there was the issue of filling the toilet. Clearly we decided to use the “If its yellow, let it mellow. If it’s brown, flush it down.” method, but in order to flush Portuguese style toilets, you need a lot of water. I mean, like a whole bucket full. I personally thought the water from the tap was too precious for this, so we went across the street to the park and filled 2 buckets with the nasty, mossy, dirty pond water, hauled it home, but lids on the buckets, and told ourselves that the pond water was for the toilet ONLY!

By this time, I felt much better about our situation and was pretty sure we could wade through 5 days of no power and water. Of course, there was the annoying and worrisome thought at the back of my mind saying, “what if the strike goes longer than 5 days?” But I chose to ignore it. Jared and I went about the rest of our day fairly normally at this point. I went to the hotel to charge the computer battery because the hotel has a generator system, their Internet was working so I checked my email, and then that night, we were having our friend, Polly, over for dinner. In the evening, Jared and I read on our veranda in the last of the sunlight that day and at about 5:30 I got up to go start dinner in the kitchen. When I walked into the living room, I noticed the clock on the DVD player – it was lit up. “Um, Jared,” I said, “we have power.” And within an hour, the water was running again too. Polly came over and was as astonished as we were at our good luck, because nowhere else had power on her drive to our house and Kristi did not either at the ADRA compound. We turned on the TV, watched the news and heard that the strike had been suspended for 2 days and that the government had to come up with a contract in that time, or the strike would resume Monday morning.

We decided to keep the all the water (except the pond water – we replaced it with tap water) in the house for the weekend incase the strike resumed, but I was really excited and hopeful that it would not happen again. On Sunday, we heard through a friend of a friend (so maybe not too reliable) that the strike had been resolved and raises had been agreed upon, but it was not mentioned on the news so we were unsure. Also, we heard from another friend, that the strike was postponed for 12 days and that the government is to use this time to come up with a new contract. So, who knows what to believe.

Well, its Monday morning now, the power and water are still on, and we still have water sitting all over the house in buckets and pots just waiting for the official word that the strike is indeed over. I’ll keep you posted…