Despite having the mighty Zambezi River and the massive hydro-powered Kariba Dam, Zambia is currently grappling with the worst electricity blackouts in living memory.
The crisis is so severe that cities and towns across the country are sometimes without electricity for three consecutive days, with people counting themselves lucky if the lights come on for an hour or two.
The power cuts have come as a shock to the 43% of Zambians who are connected to the grid and have taken electricity for granted all their lives.
But one of the severest droughts in decades – caused by the El Niño weather phenomenon – has decimated Zambia’s power-generation capacity.
Nowadays, I sometimes go to bars and restaurants to find people not eating or drinking – they are there just to charge their phones amid the pounding noise of generators.
There is also a booming business of people making money by charging the phones of those without power.
Zambia sources up to 84% of its electricity from water reservoirs such as lakes and rivers, while only 13% comes from coal.
Contributions from solar, diesel and heavy fuel oil are even lower, accounting for 3%.
