Best intentions

I really planned to write a blog post this weekend. Honestly. For one, my sister has been hounding me about it, and I don't want to face her without having written something at least. And besides, there really has been a lot going on here. We've traveled, Malawi got knocked out of the Africa Cup of Nations, the Haiti earthquake brought back all kinds of memories of emergency relief work in Darfur, I got sick, and I made some serious progress on my New Year's resolutions. All those things were blog posts waiting to happen.

And then this weekend came along. This fun weekend, where the power went out for 2 whole days. Which made me have to cancel the very fun ladies night I had planned at my house tonight with my girlfriends. :-( It only just came back on, so my guilty conscience forced me here to my blog to explain my absence. Our groceries are still in a neighbor's fridge.

The worst thing about a long power outage for me is the midnight paranoia. Crime is relatively uncommon in Malawi, but home break-ins are known to happen, and they usually happen at night, while you are home, sleeping peacefully in your bed. A good break-in would involve someone just prying open a window and fishing the closest things of value out. A bad break-in involves panga knives. Those are the ones that keep me up at night.

So last night, I wake in a panic around 1 AM, realizing that a pitch dark neighborhood is a fertile breeding ground for break-ins. Every creak, rustle and clank for the rest of the night had me peering out the window, scanning the grounds with my flashlight. I finally dozed off on the couch with a book and the flashlight pointed at a window to let any would-be burglar know I was there. Fortunately nothing happened, and by 9 tonight the work crews had finally fixed whatever problem had shut us down in the first place, but MAN, am I tired. And it is past my bedtime, so all those other blog posts will just have to wait for the next rare spontaneous instance that I have a few minutes to spare.

Night-night.