Mood Lighting

I spend a lot of time trying to explain to friends and family in the states that my life isn’t so different from theirs. I wake up in the morning, take a shower, make some coffee, go to work, try to make myself engage in some sort of physical activity (often unsuccessfully), go home, go to bed. On the weekends I go out with my friends—have dinner, drinks, see live music, dance, etc. None of this is all that different from my life in the states. But then there are times when I’m reminded just how different my life can be—like tonight when I was forced to get ready for a dinner out with friends in the dark due to load shedding, or scheduled power outages because the country simply doesn’t create enough power to keep everyone lit all the time. The candlelit shower was sort of relaxing, but the make-up by headlamp left a little to be desired, and it’s entirely possible I went out looking like Tammy Faye Bakker.