No electricity...

For the past 48 hours our house (which makes up 4 different apartments) has been completely without electricity (thankfully we were able to get a few hours here and there because of our generator) because of the hail storm that came through 2 days ago. To be honest, it has been really hard and stressful for me. The hardest part was never knowing when it would get turned back on. Thankfully my landlord and the other people who live in my house care about electricity too so they were working with the electric company to make sure things got taken care of as quickly as possible. You can imagine how happy I was this evening when I went out on my porch and saw all these guys working on the electricity lines. Actually only one of them is an electrician. The other guys are all people who live in my house. I am not sure exactly what the electrician did (wiring and power issues are handled VERY differently there than in America) but just a few minutes later he was off his ladder and back in his car driving away leaving all the guys in my house to run all the wires to our house. It was quite a process (not the most professional of course) but it worked and just a few hours later the power came on!!! Now we have have had power for 3 hours with no interruptions and I am so happy and thankful!

My neighbors trying to move the Tibetan Buddhist prayer flags in order to get the wires up and around them.

They finally got the wires up and attached them to the side of our balcony...with rope...yes, only rope and A LOT of different wires. I am truly amazed that it works but almost all of the wires throughout Kathmandu look like this or worse so I guess they have a system down.

This pole originally had all of the wires for our house on it and it got struck by lightening (that is why we have been without power) so my neighbors are removing it.

The electrician on his ladder looking at the wires.

This guy is the electrician and he is just hanging there on an old wooden ladder that is being supported by the very weak pole that was struck by lightening.

Oh the joys of life in Nepal. We have scheduled power outages for 11 hours a day and before this ordeal that seemed like a lot (which it really, really is) but after being without power for 48 hours straight 11 hours a day seems very manageable! It is amazing how much I can do and accomplish with power!