I remember the first time I fully grasped what it was like to live without light. People in Democratic Republic of Congo, with whom I was working, were driving me back to the hotel in Beni. We drove by villages where the only light was a fire in front of the house. Apart from all the things people can’t do when there is no indoor light, I could only imagine how terrifying it would be when armed men swooped down in the midde of the night after the fires were out – as they often did.

In Beni itself, the hotel only had diesel-generated power for five hours at night, and when I checked in, they gave me a candle to use when the power went out at 11 pm.

So when I first read about the Barefoot Solar Engineers, I could grasp just how powerful it was to train older women to solar electrify their villages, bringing light that allowed women to see to cook and students to study. Later, in Sri Lanka, I saw street markets that used solar lights, making it possible for people to buy and sell food when it was dark, after a day’s work.