Electricity

Hello Cornelia!

I hope everyone is enjoying the fall and the coming of winter. Here in Tanzania they don’t have the 4 seasons that we have (fall, winter, summer, and spring). Here they have only two seasons: the rainy season and the dry season. The rainy season usually begins in early December and continues until about May or June and then the dry season usually lasts from May or June until the end of November. So, while you are getting ready to get out your sleds and ice skates, I am taking out my umbrella and raincoat!

For the students and the schools the rainy season is an exciting time. Not because they get to run out and jump in puddles, but because they will have electricity all day and night. Where I am living electricity for the student’s housing and schools are provided by water! There is a process that uses a hydroelectric dam to create electricity by using water. Now, this is pretty complicated so you might have to ask your teachers or your parents to help explain how this process works.

During the dry season a generator is used to provide electricity, but this is very expensive so the schools only use it for two or three hours a day. That means that during the dry season the schools have no electricity during the day. They have no way to power lights for the classrooms, fans for the heat, copy machines for making copies, stoves for cooking food, or a refrigerator to keep drinks cold.

Now the upcoming rainy season will allow the schools to have power all day and night. The two biggest benefits of this is the ability to provide light at night so the kids can study and do their homework and then the second is the ability to use the copy machine to make copies. Think about how many great handouts you get each day from your teachers. During the dry season here it isn’t possible to make so many copies for all the students so teachers have to write all the notes on the board for them to copy into their notebooks.

In the nearby villages, however, they do not have any access to electricity in either the dry season or the rainy season. This means that they never have lights, TV, computers, microwaves, stoves, washing machines, or any of the many items we are so used to using in our daily routine. At night you can walk through the village and see candles in each of the windows as the only source of light they are able to use.

A fun exercise that you can do is to write down each item you use during the day that uses electricity. I bet that you end up with a pretty long list, and then imagine not being able to use any of those things!

Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving break!

Derek