It seems that every time I come back home to my village after a 2 or 3 week break, they've unveiled some new development project. While I'm home, nothing, consequential happens, but the second I leave, they fix the road, they install solar panels, or have computers donated to the schools (we're up to 16 now).
This time, coming home on quite a high from the election news, I noticed two differences from when I left (Highlights For Kids trained me well for these things). First, a large part of my fence is now flat on the ground, decidedly not keeping kids and animals out of my backyard. Kesia, a 7-year old girl, said it was Peta, her neighbor. Peta said it was the drunks, and her sister Dianne said it was the wind. I don't particularly care what happened, though I assume it will take a month or two to fix. It's the responsibility of the "community" as it's technically their house which means everyone can sleep soundly at night without worrying about it.
More interestingly is that when I first returned, I saw long wooden poles--tree trunks, shaved down--laying in front of the town hall. I wondered what it was all about, lamented the further destruction of the forests, and walked on. The next day, they were laid along the town road about 30 yards apart, and the day after that they were all tarred black and had holes in the ground next to them. It couldn't be, I thought. This day can't have come so soon and suddenly. After a few days' break, the unthinkable happened: workmen were putting the ELECTRIC POLES in the ground! TONGA NY JIRO! (electricity is coming!)
Despite all those exclamation points, I'm actually not getting too excited. For one, it will likely be a long time before the town can actually use this electricity, as after the wires are installed on the poles [edit: 11/20: this has been accomplished since the writing of this entry] then every house has to have a wire connected to it and sockets put in the walls. People are expecting to be finished around Christmas, leaving me with about 6 months of electricity. Second, the nature of the game here is that we're actually just getting a town generator, and will have electricity, at best, for about 3 house a night. I expect it not to work often, and as soon as one cog in the system breaks down, it will be gone for months. Besides, a candle can at least simulate electricity, whereas I can't pretend I have cell phone service, for example. Can't replace that quite as easily. Hell, I'd take a post office over electricity if I had the choice. Still though, we're moving up in this "forgotten corner of the world."
