Luz bai, luz bim

Recently, the price of rice has risen exponentially, some say by fault of the government, which has a tendency to manipulate prices for its own gain. With no electricity, it is nearly impossible to maintain fresh fruit, and foreign investment in factories is practically nonexistent. Local women travel to the border of Guinea-Bissau in the Casamance region of Senegal to buy produce like cabbages, carrots and tomatoes, although the land here can also grow such vegetables. There is no culture of eating vegetables here, what is produced or bought is sold to hotels for foreigners and not consumed locally. Occasionally, you find some slices of carrot or canned peas, a lone potato or piece of manioc among the chunks of beef or under your fish carcass. What is not purchased in the market simply goes bad and is wasted.

Some foreign investors came in recently to build a cement factory, but the government demanded 50% of the profits, so the business moved to Guinea Conakry. The political instability in the country and widespread corruption deter the rest. The World Bank pulled out of Guinea-Bissau for several years, as they estimated that nearly 80% of the money they invested was hemorrhaged (disappeared). The Bank is back now, and attempting to support efforts to increase the energy capacity, which is by far the gravest problem, besides drug trafficking, that this country faces.

There are public generators, run by the state company EAGB, and they are named “The Group of 7.” They are antiquated and often dysfunctional, and to make matters worse they are expensive, as they are not property of the government. Several have shut down, and the parts necessary to fix them no longer exist, and must be manufactured specifically for those machines, which of course has not happened. At this moment, Guinea-Bissau has a mere capacity of 3 MW. To put this in perspective, Nigeria is in the midst of an energy crisis with a current level of around 3500 MW. So the public generators run, but not all the time, and not for many. Occasionally, we get lucky. The first week I moved into our house, which is next to the yellow drug dealer hotel, we had state electricity all week. Ah, but it was an illusion. Now that the rainy season has started, light is hard to come by.

As they say in Kriol, "luz bai, luz bim" (light comes, light goes). The first big storm we had, nearly 50 houses were destroyed and families were sleeping in the streets in the rain. Certain agencies (whom I will not name) in my vicinity wanted to help these families, but inconveniently the humanitarian coordination has left (soon to be followed by many other discontented staff) and so, nothing happened.

In the meantime, our generator's spark blew and so we had no generator either. Not to mention this is all complicated by the diesel crisis, which is supposedly over but continues to be a problem. So it was bucket showers by candlelight, which is a lot less romantic than it sounds. Actually, the candles and bucket showers don't really bother me all that much, its the lack of any sort of movement of air in my room that is torturous. Forget sleeping, under that lovely mosquito net you will be tossing and turning for hours. Now the generator is fixed, we can use it for a couple hours in the evening until around 11 pm, and then it is solid darkness from then on.