Power Blackouts and Malaria Medication

By our third or fourth day in Malawi, we experienced our first power blackout. This one lasted about one hour. By the end of our first week, we had experienced three more. All around the dinner hour, at least what was our dinner hour. We tended to eat on the late side, sitting down somewhere around 6:30 to 7PM. Eating out in Malawi, often requires a longer wait for food than I am accustomed to in America. Sometimes we would not finish eating until 9:30 or 10PM at night.

Some places had generators, others did not. At the hotel where we stayed in Zomba, they had no generator. Between the power failure that meant that they could not cook, and needing to take my nightly malaria pill with food, I was not a happy camper. I usually had a package of nuts of a power bar in my bag for such a purpose, but had opted to leave all this in my hotel room. Silly me. The one night I really needed the power bar so I could take my malaria pill, I did not have it. I took the malaria pill about an hour or so after the “designated time”, designated because I was under physician’s orders to leave 12 hours between my malaria pill and my thyroid pill.

Some more time passed, and I started to feel nauseous from taking the malaria pill without food. I mentioned this Don, who is a physician, and he helped procure some bread from the kitchen so I could settle my stomach. It worked, and our food came not long after.

It was not until sometime in our second week that I found out the reasons for the power blackouts. That is, I asked Luzu. We were in Malawi during their dry season. Much of Malawi’s power comes from hydroelectric power. The problem is that during the dry season, there often is not enough hydro power to fulfill the demand for electricity. So, they have scheduled power blackouts that are advertised in the paper. The theory is that, assuming you can get a newspaper, you will know when your neighborhood is going to be blacked out and you can plan accordingly. I forgot to ask Luzu, how the word of the planned blackouts gets around to those who do not have newspapers. Perhaps the radio is used, or failing that there is always word of mouth. In any event, I finally had my answer.