02-09-17 Black-Out

Saturday 2nd September 2017

At 3:30 am I’m woken from a soul-crushing heat. Air conditioning unit is off as is the fan. I’m incredibly flustered and its steaming in our apartment. Even Kingsley stirs then cries then fully wakes from feeling the heat. I of course blame JiaJia Dora claiming she’s turned off the climate control. But she’s just as bothered by it. Ends up our steam room home is a result of a blown electricity box across the road on the town square. Our entire village is dark for a few hours.

Nothing to do but open the one window available/accessible – bathroom – we all pass out having cast off all sheets and pyjama bottoms. Surprisingly we aren’t attacked by mosquitoes.

By morning its like nothing ever occured; air conditioner is blasting cold air over us and the fan is whirring overhead. We all sleep in till 9am then potter about in the dark for an hour drinking milk pretend play keeping us entertained while JiaJia stays passed out. Kingsley and I are co-pilots on an Emirates flight bound for Athens. He obsesses over repeating again and again ‘fasten your seat belts, ladies and gentlemen in the cabin.’ It gives him a buzz speaking into the loudspeaker we fashion out of an empty toilet roll attached to a comb with ‘…your commander here in the cockpit about to count down to take-off…’

By 12:30 pm we’re done with being stuck in the house so get out to the town square pretending our fortune is held within this ATM. Such rich pilots that we are…