I did not expected days and nights without electricity in Kabul

I knew there are difficulties with electricity. I was expecting to be some similarity with the war time is Iran, staying without electricity for couple of hours a day, is OK. However it was much worst. Despite that I was just in Kabul, (not even a small city) every two days we had a couple of hours electricity. All the people who can effort it have a generator which works on the gasoline. The fuel is very expensive, so just who can pay have light at home. Well again it is in Kabul, not in small city or so!



"Switching on the generator!"

The direct consequence is on the traffic. It so funny to see there is no stop light in the cross roads, even if it is, there is no electricity for them to work! Often a police man guiding cars. Any way I do not know really how people know where and when they are allowed to go or when to stop!

Here the electricity generated mainly from water, with dams which are build on the rivers. Last year winter has been very hard. It was a lot of snow and freezing cold. People were telling me the rivers were frozen with little water to get electricity. The North of Afghanistan has good resources of water, originating from the high mountains reaching to Himalayas. It such a pretty scenery in Kabul, when the day is clear.


"Kabul river and the mountains"


"Kabul river: view from the bridge "

Just couple of weeks ago, I was fantasizing with Simon what would happen if there is no energy, and no electricity. Here you go! Some evenings was fun sitting under the head lamp (or candle light), running my laptop on the battery, and writing my diaries ;-). It reminded me of when I was 8 or 9, during the Iran-Iraq war. Me and Mahsa (my sister) had to do our homework under the candle or oil light, the oil light had some metal bars around it, and in some angles it would give shadow, that was really annoying! we would often argue who sits where to get a better spot on avoiding the shadows on the pages of notebook. There were nights we would get bored on sitting in one place, and we would play with melted candles or make shadows patterns on the wall with our figures!

I am becoming pretty nostalgic here!!!