Adapting

At times, electricity can be shockingly complicated. Oh yes, pun intended! My sense of humor might be suffering from the jolt of electricity I experienced a couple weeks ago. At this point we believe we’ve managed to keep the electrical wires away from the overflowing water heater, and we’ve definitely experienced fewer shocking episodes in recent days. There was the issue of the living room light, but really, my arm had that tingly feeling for only 10 minutes, so it doesn’t count. =)

In other electrical news, Matt has retrofitted his computer cord to work here in Malawi.

Plug 1
He bought a generic cord at the outdoor market, then cut off the plug and stripped the wires. You can see little black leftover pieces. He also bought a simple Malawian plug (same as what they use in the UK). That’s what he’s holding in this picture.

Plug 2
Then he attached the new cord to the new plug…

Plug 3
Put everything back together, and…

Plug 4
Plugged it in! You can see the new plug in the socket on the right. The new black cord connects to the Mac power adaptor, and runs electricity to his laptop.

If fixing the water heater were only this easy…

A Few Things We Bought

Since we arrived about 6 weeks ago, we’ve purchased a few things that are a bit out of the ordinary for us…

Bought 5
What: Car Battery
From: QuickFit
Why: Because the battery in the Biedebach’s van was dead – very dead. So dead that we had to borrow another battery to drive the van to town to buy the new one.

Bought 2
What: Mosquito Zapper Racket
From: Santa Plaza
Why: Because it’s more fun to electrocute mosquitos than to smash them, and a racket is faster than my hand.

Bought 3
What: Oil Lantern
From: Chipiku
Why: Because the electricity goes out often here, especially in the evenings; and the lantern cost $2.20.

Bought 4
What: Emergency Light
From: Santa Plaza! (Yes, Santa as in Santa Claus)
Why: Because it’s brighter than the oil lantern, and it comes on automatically when the power goes out.

Bought 1
What: Toyota Hilux Surf
From: Pam Forester, who moved back to Ireland
Why: Because we need to haul lots of stuff around and survive all the pot holes. Yay! We have a vehicle!