Prior to my trip to Ghana, I, along with another 15 students from the journalism school, were required to take an orientation class in which we learned about Ghanaian culture and lifestyle. We talked about the differences between living in the United States and Ghana, which include having to wash our clothes by hand and getting used to frequent power shortages. Living in Mexico for 11 years, that wasn’t something I was worried about.
Although we all knew the power would go out eventually, I was not as prepared as I thought I would be. I was writing a blogpost and talking to friends in Facebook when suddenly the internet stopped working and the lights went out. It was around 5 p.m. Ghanaian time (10 a.m. in Oregon), and I thought it would be a good idea to shower before it got dark. I was also planning to go to bed early because I would not be able to work on my blog or anything else with the slow wifi. What I didn’t know was that when the power goes out the water pipes stop working too…taking a shower was not so good of an idea after all.
The water couldn’t have stopped at a more inconvenient time; I was showering and had shampoo in my hair when it happened. After two minutes of freaking out in the shower, I remembered I had just bought two water bottles of 1.5 liters each and used that to rinse off. I was one of the only people that were able to shower that night, everyone had to wait until next morning when the power came back on. None of us understand how the water and electricity system are connected nor do we get why they stopped working at the same time, but at least I now know what to expect the next time the power goes out. No more showers in the dark for me.