The Test

The Test

This is only a test. Do not panic. This is only a test.

Do not mind the darkness. Do not mind the lack of running water. Do not mind the dead batteries in your phone, in your flashlight, in your… everything. This is only a test.

If this were a real emergency, it would seem… well, just about exactly like this. Except I wouldn’t be telling you, ‘This is only a test.’

Dad did it. Dad got remarried. So now we have Donna in the family.

She’s alright. You know, as far as wicked stepmothers go. (Kidding, kidding.)

Donna has traveled the world, including the third world and including Africa.

However, her stories from the third world seem to involve scenes witnessed from a luxury cruise ship or panoramas absorbed from the veranda of a luxury safari lodges or… well, you get the picture.

One problem: Our family is NOT the luxury type. 

Sure, just like anybody else, we can enjoy the finer things in life. We can go all out and order sour cream on our Taco Bell burrito every once in a while (but we prefer carrying in our own store brand tub of the white, creamy goodness and dolloping it on ourselves). We can drink Perrier (so long as it’s sat out a few days and gone flat and we didn’t actually pay for it and somebody holds our nose for us). We can stay in a hotel that’s rated with stars (plural!). We can buy non-pre-owned clothes occasionally!!! (There’s another name for that, but I can’t remember what it is off the top of my head… oh right!… ‘new’.) We fancy. Boogie. Wait, no. That’s a dance. Bougie. Poverty chic.

Donna’s just plain chic, which until recently, we merely presumed to be alternative spelling for soy chicken.

So when Donna assumed herself to be tough enough to hack it in Chad, we chortled. But vows were taking, visas were attained, flights were booked and paid for, and, seeing as how they were non-refundable (the tickets, not the vows), and seeing as how we aren’t the family to even let a lukewarm month-old strangely-bubbling piece of quiche (see, we’re fancy) go to waste if it’s free, we figured she might as well come.

We gave her a day here before we pulled the plug. We decided enough was enough and we shut off the generator.

‘It’s broken,’ we lied. It was freaking hi-lar-i-ous. As if all three generators could ever possibly die at the exact same time. But she bought it.

So for a week, Donna was here with only rare electricity and running water. Shower in the drips when they run. Rush to plug in everything when the lights go on. Then groan when the lights go off the moment you plug something in. Sleep without a fan. No blow dryer or curling iron for you, sister!

How do you like Chad, now!

What? You like it here? What’s wrong with you, woman?!

Hmmm… we may need to turn up the pressure…

Oh, dear! You don’t have water to drink, Donna? I’m so sorry. Well, when in Chad…

What? You already stocked some water?

What? You’re ok without your phone?

But… Hmmm… 

Huh? You cleaned out that stank fridge? Hmmm…

You’re just fine with eating in candlelight? Hmmm…

You don’t need the fan at night? Hmmm…

Well, I give up. I’m out of ideas.

Night before Dad and Donna head home, the ‘mechanic’ comes to fix the generator. (Read: the actor we hired to pretend to be a mechanic.) Within a few hours, the generator is magically purring away, allowing Donna to charge her phone for the loooooooong journey home.

Now that Donna’s gone, we can finally leave on our generator and bask in our constant running water.

Now what’s the stereotype?… Was it wicked stepmother or wicked stepson?

(Only kidding, we actually did have genuine generator issues the ENTIRE time they were visiting, more so than we’ve had in all 9+ years here. We were so spoiled with Jamie and then Rollin to keep things humming. The generators seem to be on the mend now, although we still had to shut down for a few hours this morning. And when the generators are out, out water goes out too.)

(As a second aside to the story, the mechanic came in at night and worked until 11pm fixing two generators, or at least patching them to workable for the moment, although we still needed two solenoids, now installed, and two more pieces, which are arriving from America next week. He also diagnosed a third generator and is working on it at home and bringing it back next weekend. At 11pm, he decided to work on the Prado, which he had diagnosed by midnight and decided he would need to take that one home too. At 6am, he got Rollin’s car running for the first time in almost a year. Then pulled the starter from the pickup to take home and work on. Then he had our old beastie running again for the first time in years, although not adequately. It will also need to go to Moundou if it’s ever to run again. He worked fast and we kept him busy with seven engines! When a previous mechanic had heard this guy was coming, the old mechanic told the new mechanic he was also a witch doctor and had previously paralyzed two mechanics to cross his turf and he’d kill him. Apparently, our mechanic wasn’t impressed, because he came anyway. Never boring here…)