Dumsor Days

These are interesting times in Ghana. On any given night, at least one-third (and sometimes two-thirds) of residents are quite literally in the dark - and these are the ones who are connected to the grid. For a number of reasons (including power plant shortages, unreliable gas pipelines from Nigeria and low water levels feeding dams), the national grid is functioning well below capacity. The end result is rolling blackouts, known as "lights out", or "dumsor dumsor" (Twi for "off-on, off-on").

The Electricity Company of Ghana (ECG, which may also stand for Electricity Comes and Goes or Either Candle or Generator) has become perhaps the country's most reviled public institution. To make load-shedding a predictable exercise, they have issued a timetable where residents are in one of three zones. Within a 36-hour period, for 12 hours, power is guaranteed, for 12 hours it will be off, and the remaining 12 hours are dependent on the overall demand. The catch is that the timetable is mostly unpredictable and neighbourhoods will go for days on end without power. The ECG is also facing a massive deficit for a logical reason: customers who do not receive electricity are not likely to pay their bills.

The end result? People make do, but any business requiring access to electricity (from internet cafes to cold stores) either have to shut down, or pony up for a generator and burn ridiculous amounts of diesel. Incidentally, two of the biggest businesses are selling overpriced generators and phone-charging services.

For larger businesses, the stakes are even higher: if a factory does not have regular power and cannot afford an industrial-sized generator, it simply shuts down and tells its employees to go home, reducing productivity to a fraction. Even the biggest companies are affected. So the economy is starting to slow down.

Like many relatively affluent residents, Mr. and Mrs. O have access to a generator, which has shielded them from the worst effects of dumsor. The hum of the generator in the yard (and neighbors' yards) has become a fact of life, as is the smell of burning diesel. In less than two years, Mr. O has gone from being a recycling, bike-commuting eco-hippie to a near-constant consumer of fossil fuels - one could say he has cashed in his lifetime of carbon credits.

But the alternative is worse: the 1% of Ghana live very much in a gilded cage: high walls, razor wire, guards, etc. Take electricity out of the equation, and it becomes a gilded sarcophagus. Quite simply, the infrastructure prepared for Accra's elite requires a lot of resources. Not only do westerners consume more imported non-recyclable goods and rely on private transportation, but even the houses built for them are wasteful.

In the case of Mr. and Mrs. O, their delightful temporary home is a giant concrete box that is completely inappropriate for the climate: it directly absorbs the equatorial sun, has no natural ventilation (no cross-breezes), and every room requires its own air conditioner. Back home, an AC unit was something installed in the bedroom before a heatwave; here it is an essential item in any inhabited room.

So when the generator fails and the repair guy is slow to arrive, things get hot and sticky in the house. The water pump is also electricity-dependent, so when power fails, best to fill the buckets with the remaining water pressure. At the university, a night without power was an inconvenience; now, a nightmare.

To keep things in perspective, even having a generator that works most of the time is a great privilege. So enjoy the AC, don't mind the humming and get used to the smell.

On the upside, Ghanaians keep a good sense of humour through it all. For example, here is an explanation of how dumsor happens.