It appears that breadfruit trees continue to produce fruit all year long.

If we had a home of our own and, if the power was out for eight hours, we could easily busy ourselves if we didn’t have a generator (which we did in our old lives). We could go to a movie, out for lunch or visit family or friends. We could go for a walk in the neighborhood. 

We could wash windows, clean the gutters, or mow the lawn. We could make a trip to Home Depot, Walgreens, and the mall to purchase the items on the list we’d been accumulating. This time of year, we could have gone Christmas shopping and by the time we returned home, the power could be back on.

But here in Fiji, we can’t go for a walk on the impossibly steep, deeply rutted dirt road or, work around the house or, go to a movie. There’s no movie theatre here. Plus, the power was down in the entire town. There was nothing to do. 

We began the day OK. I finished and uploaded the post before the power had gone out, just to be safe. Good thing. The dongle wouldn’t work with the power out in the village when Vodafone had also been shut down. We had no Internet connection.

We hadn’t seen these pretty flowers until this morning.

I couldn’t cook as I often do when it made no sense to open the fridge. As a matter of fact, we never opened the refrigerator or freezer once during the outage after placing a huge bag of ice in a bowl in the refrigerated section to keep the items cold. It worked. Everything was still cold eight hours later, including the items in the freezer all of which were still frozen.

We’d used two insulated bags, one within the other, to keep ice handy for our iced tea and kept our iced tea pitcher on the counter all day. It was a good plan.

We’d arranged for Rasnesh to pick us up for a drive but it rained and we weren’t able to see across the bay. It wasn’t a good day for photos. We canceled by 10:00 am to free him for other customers. 

Luckily, it wasn’t quite as hot as it had been over the past week. We did fine without the two fans. By late afternoon, the heat escalated and we sighed with relief as the power returned.

The ferry passing this morning.

For some odd reason, neither of us was in the mood for reading books on our phones. Getting up so early to ensure we could post before the outage, by 10 am, it felt as if it was midday. We decided to watch two movies on my laptop which has a good battery that can last through three full length movies without a charge.

With many windows in the house and the need to keep the curtains opened for a possible breeze, it was hard to see the screen on the laptop especially since I’d turned down the brightness level down to less than 40% to save on battery life. 

We managed to watch Transporter Refueled (mediocre), Edge (also mediocre), and an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.  Using approximately four hours of battery life, I was surprised to find 50% power remaining after watching the shows. 

Once it hit 2 pm, we began to play games on our phones, play Gin (Tom won but I’m ahead one game in the Fiji tally) and the time moved more quickly.  At 4:33 pm the power returned as we quickly plugged everything back in. 

These colorful plants continue to thrive.

Tom busily prepared to watch the Minnesota Vikings football game on his laptop while I began to put together the various dishes for dinner. With everyone in the area online as soon as the power returned, the signal was poor taking him extra time to get through the game. 

By 7:15 we sat down to dinner which would have been earlier but we couldn’t get the portable oven to work.  Tom worked on the plugs for a while and finally, it fired up. He wasn’t finished watching the game but, had decided to wait until I went to bed to read at 9:30 pm, to finished the last quarter. They lost. He was disappointed.

Surprisingly, for a very inactive day, we slept well. Cooling strong winds and rains washed over the area all night and sleeping was easier than ever. Both of us up and ready to start the day by 6:00 am this morning, again, we’ll stay in on another rainy day. 

Happy to have power again and with all of the kitchen appliances working well, we’re good. Hope all of you are the same as those of our readers in the US prepare for the Thanksgiving holiday.

Photo from one year ago today, November 24, 2014:

Golfing is a huge sport for tourists in the Hawaii Islands with many award-winning golf courses available on the four largest islands; Oahu, Maui, Big Island (Hawai’i), and Kauai. For more golf course photos in Maui, please click here.