October 21, 2002

Farewell, sweet generator, with your smoke and noise…

Today marked the end of an era in Zababdeh history. Since 1970, the village has relied on a petrol generator to provide electricity to the village. While in some ways this had meant progress, it also brought with it headache. Petrol generators are expensive and noisy. Like many people, our apartment is near the generator, so we lived under a constant not-so-white-noise hum. Since this intifada started, many people haven't been able to pay their electricity bills, so the municipality (which has been the manager for the generator) had to cut off power in the middle of the night (and sometimes in the afternoons) to save fuel and delay the next purchase of petrol. Stumbling in the dark to the bathroom, grumbling at the unresponsive computer, composting prematurely moldy leftovers - all reminders of how much we rely on electricity, and how lucky we are to have any. But today we bid farewell to the generator age as Zababdeh joined the area power grid, run by the Israeli electric utility for much of the West Bank. We'll miss it, oddly. It's simply become part of the landscape. The power was turned off temporarily to make the switch-over.

Once it was back on, we turned on the TV to find news that made us wish it had stayed off - another bombing, this time a bus in Northern Israel. At least thirteen Israelis have been killed. Ariel Sharon has promised "retribution" for this attack. It's bad enough here when the Israelis aren't seeking revenge. God have mercy.