Armenia vs. The Gambia: Electricity and running water

Our building in Armenia is new and for some strange reason the builders did not consider the installation of a generator while it was being built. Therefore, when there is a power outage (which occasionally happens here, even in a country with a fully-functioning nuclear power plant), there is no emergency power source. This is the second time I am without electricity and water for more then four hours within two weeks. In The Gambia, the Embassy provided and maintained our own generator. Here in Armenia, the Embassy provides generators and water tanks to people who live in houses, while the rest … are screwed.

[Battery is dead… ]

[Four hours later...]

I got lot of reading done in the sweltering apartment over the last few hours. I forgot that you also can’t flush the toilet when there is no electricity. Here we don’t have our pool to draw water from.

The Embassy supplies us with fancy security features to protect us, vulnerable US diplomats and our property on foreign soil. We have a radio, a safe, an alarm system and security lights outside the apartment. Last week we had a five-hour power outage during the night. It was pitch black, and the radio died within two hours as it was not fully charged. If something had happened, God forbid, we’d be dead and no one would even know we were in danger. So much for that. As the power came back, I got a call from the General Services Officer who proudly announced that the problem is not with the building, but with the city power supply. Not wanting to be “difficult,” I didn’t release what was on my tongue: “It is the building’s problem and therefore the Embassy’s problem that they don’t have a generator.” The Embassy Housing Handbook features a warning: “A power failure is NOT considered an emergency.” Following this statement, they forgot to put in parentheses: “Die, you bastards, die!”

In The Gambia, besides the generator, we had two water lines. One came into the house from the two 5,000 liter water tanks fed by the city water supply. When we drained the tanks during those periods when a high number of tourists in the country used up all the city water, the Embassy crew came with a water bowser and filled us up. The second water line was a tap coming from the ground next to our car park. We used it to water our garden. It was separate from the house line in order for us not to waste the precious water for the house on plants. This water line worked sometimes when the first didn’t and vice versa. One time when the house line didn’t work, but the garden line was spouting water, we dragged the garden hose in through the kitchen window so I could wash the dirty dishes.