Funny enough as it turns out, the two are inherently linked. Electricity in Nepal is a spotty thing as there are scheduled outages of electricity based upon which district you live in. In Kathmandu, depending upon the time of year once can expect the electricity to be out between 30 and 40 hours a week. We recently heard that this increases during the winter. We are currently looking at 45 hours a week of what they call “load shedding”. Why does it increase in the winter? Well, there are two reasons why this might happen, one is demand and the other is supply. During the colder months there is a greater demand for electricity for heat. Also, during the winter months there is less water abundance as we are in the middle of dry season. As a result there is less hydroelectric power available due to low water levels. It’s a bit of a double whammy actually… While all of this sounds very inconvenient, it is not that bad, as often the outages will occur late at night or early in the morning, so you may not be affected at all some days. It can be a bit difficult at the office however. In fact, I am writing this blog at the office (my bad…) during load shedding. It makes you appreciate having a laptop that much more! Thanks Climate Change Central for letting me keep it!!
The saving grace to all of this “load shedding” business that occurs is that Jenn and I just happened to find a place to live that is located strategically close to the Prime Minister and the President’s residences. As it so happens, rank has its privileges and the Prime Minister and President are exempt from load shedding (at least for the time being). So, by default the lowly volunteers from Canada are exempt as well! So, apart from a few hiccups in power from time to time we have been lucky to have the lights on consistently.
As for water, it can be scarce during the winter months in Nepal. We were told to be careful where we chose to live, as the water taps can run dry at times. We were careful to ask about water supply and it appears that there is no issue where we live as they have water pumps and large supply tanks at our building. Hot water is a different issue altogether though… After talking to our landlords we were satisfied that hot water would be available on demand and the solar thermal heating system would be sufficient for the three families that live in the building. This is good in theory, but not in practice as I spent a week getting cold showers and I mean ice cold showers in the morning. The solar thermal system certainly works, but timing is everything. Of course, sunlight is also a must to ensure a warm shower as well and that isn’t always guaranteed either. So, long story short, Jenn and I invested in a “Geyser”, which is essentially a gas powered on demand water heating system for our shower and since then we have no complaints. Hot water until the cows come home!!! Woo hoo!! So how much does a “geyser” cost? Pretty cheap by North American standards I would say. We paid about $90 Cdn for system itself and another $50 for the gas cylinder deposit (which we will get back when we leave). The gas itself costs $20 Cdn/cylinder. I don’t know yet how long the gas will last, but whatever it costs it’s worth it for consistent hot showers!
So, now that you know all about our showers, you are probably wondering about water quality? Is the water safe to drink?? In short, absolutely not. The water in Kathmandu is definitely not fit to drink without boiling. We get our drinking water in bottles… much like we did in Canada. We get the big 18.9L bottles of purified water (distilled, uv treated and ozonated as well) and we get it delivered right to our door. The bottle deposit actually costs more than what we pay in Canada, go figure, but the water is cheap at about $2 Cdn per bottle.
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