Dinner the evening was a lively affair. Pastor Brown had espoused the cause of the water project and called a conference. His latest innovation was solar power. Quite reasonably, he had decided that it was a scandalous waste of resources to haul gas and paraffin into the heart of Africa simply to burn them. Investigation of the mail-order catalogues that he favoured had provided, after suitable delay, a huge sheet of solar panels that he installed on the roof of his house. By the simple expedient of exposing these to blinding sunlight throughout the day, he was able to entice a single bulb to glow for several hours of the night. Immediately he cut off all other forms of energy, which reduced his family to scuttling about with torches while the Great Bulb glowed in the living-room. Here we sat to eat, blinking like hedgehogs in the beam of a car's headlights. To supply the Great Bulb, large holes had been knocked in the ceiling. This was unfortunate as the roof space was inhabited to bursting with bats whose faces bore a curious sneering expression. Attracted by the Great Bulb, they swooped and circled, casting huge shadows on the walls. Blinded by the Great Bulb, they regularly thudded into obstructions or threatened to become entangled in the diners' hair. One of the endemic cats had decided to exploit the situation with some impromptu leaps and dives, bringing down bats that she carried to a corner and devoured with horrendous crunching and slurping noises. Occasionally, Pastor Brown would be driven to the point of incoherent rage by this flying vermin and fire off a couple of rounds from the air-rifle he kept by his chair, screaming in Fulani as he did so. The guests, the cat, other members of the family would fling themselves to the floor as pieces of bat and plasterboard descended into the food.

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