The Power

I tried to call Henry this week on Thursday at the scheduled time, but could not get through. While unusual, this occasionally happens due to cell phone network problems on the Ugandan end of things. I sent him a text via Skype telling him that I would try again the next morning. On Friday, he answered right away and apologized for not being able to receive a call the day before on account of a dead cell phone battery. This, of course, happens to all of us, but for a different reason than it happened to Henry.

Henry is home with his family waiting to see where he gets admitted to Senior High School for grade S5, which starts in early March. In Henry’s modest home in Hoima, there is no electricity. Ever. This is a simple fact of life for the vast majority of Ugandans outside of the capital city of Kampala (and even most inside Kampala). Over the past year, however, even Kampala has been experiencing rolling blackouts as the country struggles to produce enough power to serve the population, and then to manage effectively what power they do produce. It is not uncommon in many parts of Kampala for the power to be out three or four days a week (or more) for the evening hours, and a couple days a week for it to be intermittent during the day. Consequently, generators are critical for those who need reliable power. (Fortunately, the complex where we will be living is equipped with a generator that kicks on within a minute of when the grid goes down).

In Hoima, only a small percentage of families have either electricity or a generator. Henry’s family is not among them. So whenever his cell phone battery is running critically low, he needs to locate a source of power. Since the arrival of cell phones in Africa, a cottage industry of battery charging has sprung up throughout the unelectrified portions of the continent. The market rate in Hoima is 1,000 Shillings (currently forty cents) to charge a cell phone battery. This is not an insignificant amount of money for most Ugandans, so it behooves the residents to find alternative sources of charging when available. Accordingly, whenever Henry is in Hoima, he sends his cell phone with his younger brother to school once a week so that he can charge the phone from the outlet in the school library.
Unfortunately, the central grid in Hoima has been down for one full month. Consequently, Henry had to track down a battery-charging merchant with a generator and pay the 1,000 Shillings. This happened on Friday before I called him. We spoke for about fifteen minutes. He is continuing to work in the small family envelope business and has been looking for other odd jobs, but to no avail.

Meanwhile, the little Hero who was dismembered by a witch doctor and is now in the United States awaiting a series of reconstructive surgeries is doing well. His first operation will take place this coming Tuesday at Cedars’ Sinai. This operation is scheduled to take eight hours and he should be in the hospital for a while. The surgeon will be taking patches of skin from his forearms for the grafting. I am meeting Bob Goff at the hospital, and I am eager to see both Bob and Hero – I haven’t seen either of them since returning from Uganda last month. Please be praying for the doctor (Randy), and for Hero.

The power of prayer doesn’t suffer from periodic interruptions or rolling blackouts . . . it is on all of the time.