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| El Andalous - Garden and Pool |
Everything in Egypt is a bit uncertain. The politics, the time (when will it go forward, when will it go back?), the roads (that’s a road??), internet connection and electricity supply are all good examples. I think it's worth recounting the uncertainty of electricity supply in one blog - I've already mentioned it a bit from time to time as it's part of life, but sometimes I forget to describe certain small incidents that aren't worth a blog in their own right.
I’ve said before that Sahl Hasheesh has one day each month for an electricity upgrade or check of some kind and on that day we are without electricity from 9am until 2pm. It’s not so bad because you are forewarned.
At one stage, it felt as if we had in addition random power cuts fairly frequently at around 8pm, but that seems to have passed now. However, last week we had one of the longest power cuts since I’ve been here – from around 7am until 7pm. This time, it wasn’t just Sahl Hasheesh, or just Hurghada, it was the whole of Egypt. Can you imagine – an entire country without electricity for 12 hours? I haven’t found out yet why or how that happened.
As luck would have it, the national power cut occurred on one of the days where I’d forgotten to ensure that all my appliances (mobiles, laptop, modem, kindle, camera, tablet) were charged up before I went to bed, so when I got up, I had only an hour left on my laptop and an hour left on my modem battery. I ended up swimming instead and it was actually quite nice to go in the morning for a change; it felt as if the fish were all in different places from usual.
We also had a phase – I think it was during the World Cup (which is probably relevant) – where the electricity would waver. You’d sit at home and suddenly the lights would all dip and then come back up to full brightness again. It wasn’t quite a disco, but you’d sit there and anticipate a power cut coming any minute and then it didn’t happen. See, even the uncertainty of electricity supply can be uncertain!
Then there was the time when half of my flat lost electricity. I’m still not quite sure what happened. Anyway, I went to my fuse box, saw that one of the fuses was down, so I flicked it back up and the unit gave out a flash and a “bang!” and I smelt burning. It was scary. I felt pretty lucky not to have been electrocuted. It was also accompanied by my entire flat being plunged into darkness. What had I done!
I went to the security guard who came in and flicked the main fuse switch back on. Everything whirred back into life. I couldn’t quite believe it. One socket didn’t work, but everything else seemed fine. I was a bit scared to touch anything electrical in the flat for a while. The next day I asked Medhat if it was really safe for that fuse to have just been flicked back on, but he assured me it was. I’m not entirely sure that he understood what had happened or that he was telling the truth, but there wasn’t much I could do. Nevertheless, I’m still alive at the moment, so it can’t be that bad.
And finally, there’s my oven that can’t be on at the same time as my hob. Eventually, I decided to try to get it sorted. To my scepticism and surprise, they said I just needed a new extension cord. That also didn’t seem like the safe or even workable solution, but actually it worked. So, I now have hassle-free cooking where I can boil my veggies while waiting for my chicken to finish roasting. Life almost resembles normality!
As luck would have it, the national power cut occurred on one of the days where I’d forgotten to ensure that all my appliances (mobiles, laptop, modem, kindle, camera, tablet) were charged up before I went to bed, so when I got up, I had only an hour left on my laptop and an hour left on my modem battery. I ended up swimming instead and it was actually quite nice to go in the morning for a change; it felt as if the fish were all in different places from usual.
We also had a phase – I think it was during the World Cup (which is probably relevant) – where the electricity would waver. You’d sit at home and suddenly the lights would all dip and then come back up to full brightness again. It wasn’t quite a disco, but you’d sit there and anticipate a power cut coming any minute and then it didn’t happen. See, even the uncertainty of electricity supply can be uncertain!
Then there was the time when half of my flat lost electricity. I’m still not quite sure what happened. Anyway, I went to my fuse box, saw that one of the fuses was down, so I flicked it back up and the unit gave out a flash and a “bang!” and I smelt burning. It was scary. I felt pretty lucky not to have been electrocuted. It was also accompanied by my entire flat being plunged into darkness. What had I done!
I went to the security guard who came in and flicked the main fuse switch back on. Everything whirred back into life. I couldn’t quite believe it. One socket didn’t work, but everything else seemed fine. I was a bit scared to touch anything electrical in the flat for a while. The next day I asked Medhat if it was really safe for that fuse to have just been flicked back on, but he assured me it was. I’m not entirely sure that he understood what had happened or that he was telling the truth, but there wasn’t much I could do. Nevertheless, I’m still alive at the moment, so it can’t be that bad.
And finally, there’s my oven that can’t be on at the same time as my hob. Eventually, I decided to try to get it sorted. To my scepticism and surprise, they said I just needed a new extension cord. That also didn’t seem like the safe or even workable solution, but actually it worked. So, I now have hassle-free cooking where I can boil my veggies while waiting for my chicken to finish roasting. Life almost resembles normality!
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