One of the challenges of Nepal is the unreliability of the electricity. If you have, as I do, multiple devices that all need to be charged enough to be of service, you need some kind of routine to make sure everything chugs along for you.
I have one outlet near my desk and another one over near the bathroom. Since I have a multi-slot charger, I only need to use the one outlet. Besides the one near the bathroom is also dangerously close to a water source, so I prefer not to use it.
If my MacBook Pro reaches 50% battery, I plug it in. This is a beauty of a machine. One charge will take me as many as 6 – 8 hours, so if it is ready to go, I can slide through just about any electrical blackout Nepal can throw at me.
I have a battery pack that can charge all my devices if I’m traveling or
if I’ve forgotten to keep the phone or the iPad topped up. I make a point to charge the battery pack on second priority, then the iPhone, the iPad and the Nook march along behind. I also have a Nepali phone that my hosts here had lying around unused, so while it doesn’t have the smart-phone bells and whistles, it calls the people I need to call and rings when they call me. That’s kind of how phones used to work, didn’t they?
I keep a light on in the room during the day, as a signal in case the lights go out. That’s when I need to make sure I’m all charged.
What a difference between this and the first time I came to Nepal. All my reflections took written form in hardcover books bought from dusty office supplies vendors in the market. Phone calls took all day at the post offices where desperate Iranians pushed ahead and jumped the lines. All our mail lived and died in little bundles in what we called Post Restante, piles of mail that were sorted by what the postal workers in far-flung places guessed was your last name. I had a Nikon camera and 80 boxes of film, both slides and prints, though mostly slides. I never saw a photo I took for 18 months, until I came home and had them all developed.