{"id":5927,"date":"2019-10-15T09:25:52","date_gmt":"2019-10-15T06:25:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=5927"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:36","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:36","slug":"in-the-dark-electricity-a-luxury-in-poor-madagascar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/10\/15\/in-the-dark-electricity-a-luxury-in-poor-madagascar\/","title":{"rendered":"In The Dark: Electricity a ‘Luxury’ In Poor Madagascar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Daily Nation<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Raymond\nRakotondrasoa surveys the charred remains of his mud and thatched-roofed house\nin Madagascar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I\nleft a candle burning on my bedside table,” the 70-year-old says. “It\nfell and set fire to my clothes before spreading.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nretired construction worker is lucky to be alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“If\nit had happened during the night I could have died,” says Rakotondrasoa,\nwho lost all his worldly possessions in minutes that terrible day in August.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Only 15\npercent of the country’s 26 million inhabitants have access to electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone\nelse, like Rakotondrasoa, relies on candles, oil and kerosene lamps.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

KEROSENE\nvs CANDLE LIGHT<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Says\nRakotondrasoa: “I can’t stand the smell and the fumes given off by\nkerosene, so I use candles and an oil lamp.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

His\nneighbour Louise Rasoahelinivo prefers kerosene because it is cheaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I\nuse two candles a day, whereas one litre of kerosene lasts more than a\nmonth,” says the 70-year-old seamstress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Candles\ncost between 6 and 12 euros cents (Sh13, 13 US cents) each in the island nation\noff of southeastern Africa, compared with 50 cents (Sh51) for a litre of\nkerosene.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\ndifference is significant in a country where two-thirds of the population lives\nbelow the poverty line. Read\nmore>><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Daily Nation Raymond Rakotondrasoa surveys the charred remains of his mud and thatched-roofed house in Madagascar. “I left a candle burning on my bedside table,” the 70-year-old says. “It…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}