Thread by @shawajason

In this thread, i try to explain how we deal with the electricity shortage in #Gaza.
Since 2007 Gazans have been living on a strict diet of eight hours electricity per day, sometimes its six, four, or even two hours. It is not as easy as you might think to pull off.

It requires meticulous planing, knowledge of alternative power sources (operation & maintenance)& a great deal of ingenuity. You must know the schedule of electricity in your neighborhood by heart.

If you plan on visiting friends outside your neighborhood, then you need to know their schedule as well, i mean you don’t want to get there to discover they don’t have electricity and be forced to go up nine flights of stairs on foot!

If you need to see a doctor, it also helps to know his/her electricity schedule too. Basically you need to know everyones schedule if you want anything achieved in your day.

To by-pass the lack of electricity, people resort to multiple expensive alternatives, most common is an electric generator, which happens to run on fuel which is very expensive and at times can be very hard to come by.

Second option is an Inverter, which is basically a device that converts a car battery’s 12 volt electrical current into 220 volts for home use. The tricky part here is finding a good quality car battery to operate this device, those too are very expensive and..

at times super hard to come by because of the Israeli siege imposed on Gaza.
The third option & most expensive for sure, is solar energy which has become a trend among the more privileged Gazans who have the financial means to afford it.

Even with all these devices, it is as hard as hell to get things done. Washing machines, electric kettles, irons, dish washers, boilers, heaters, hair dryers, ovens, grills, baby bottle sterilizers, elevators, coffee makers, water pumps don’t operate..

on the above mentioned alternatives, not to mention businesses and factories that can only operate on massive generators that consume huge amounts of fuel which is not feasible in anyway to these businesses.

So basically you need to shift all washing, ironing, bathing etc. to when you have electricity. Many people do such chores after midnight cause that is when they have electricity.
It is so much harder than most of you think.

I urge you to try making a list starting first thing in the morning when you wake up of everything you do that needs electricity starting with the heater which i find most difficult thing as without it it’s very hard to get out of bed on cold winter mornings.

You will be amazed at how many things run on electricity. If you decide to do this list on your ipad or cell phone, i would suggest you charge it the night before since we are assuming you will have no electricity in the morning.

One last thing to mention is the reason we have such little electricity is that Israel bombed our electric plant several times, and tightly controls the scarce amounts of fuel that enter into #Gaza.