Umeme!!!
(Kiswahili for electricity!)
On a day when I was returning from town, wishing that I lived anywhere else on earth than Tanzania, I pulled up to find three workers installing a power meter at our house.
I tried to play it cool—“it’s about time you guys came!”, but went into a hidden part of the house and danced a jig. It’s been 11 months since we applied, and over two months since we moved in, and finally, we have power!
Well… it didn’t work, of course. We had to wait an extra day for an electrician to come and get it to actually work. But we actually go out and look at the meter, admire the numbers—pitiful, but true.
This is a new kind of meter, a prepaid meter. We buy units, enter a code onto a keypad, then get that much electricity until the meter cuts the electricity off. No meter reader necessary (one position that is prone to corruption here), no unpaid power bills bankrupting the power utility.
Hopefully, the power company will have us in their system soon: we have been trying to buy more units (the meter came with 50kWh as a starter), but have not yet been able to. So, we may be in the dark again sometime soon.
We are retraining ourselves. Initially, we would walk around at night in the dark, looking for and using a flashlight, until one of us would get the bright idea to flip a light switch.
Seriously, we feel much more secure now that we can run some exterior lights at night, safer without kerosene lanterns burning, cleaner as we aren’t pouring kerosene into lamps and petrol into a generator all the time, plus more regular hot showers. The virtues of Umeme!
(Kiswahili for electricity!)
On a day when I was returning from town, wishing that I lived anywhere else on earth than Tanzania, I pulled up to find three workers installing a power meter at our house.
I tried to play it cool—“it’s about time you guys came!”, but went into a hidden part of the house and danced a jig. It’s been 11 months since we applied, and over two months since we moved in, and finally, we have power!
Well… it didn’t work, of course. We had to wait an extra day for an electrician to come and get it to actually work. But we actually go out and look at the meter, admire the numbers—pitiful, but true.
This is a new kind of meter, a prepaid meter. We buy units, enter a code onto a keypad, then get that much electricity until the meter cuts the electricity off. No meter reader necessary (one position that is prone to corruption here), no unpaid power bills bankrupting the power utility.
Hopefully, the power company will have us in their system soon: we have been trying to buy more units (the meter came with 50kWh as a starter), but have not yet been able to. So, we may be in the dark again sometime soon.
We are retraining ourselves. Initially, we would walk around at night in the dark, looking for and using a flashlight, until one of us would get the bright idea to flip a light switch.
Seriously, we feel much more secure now that we can run some exterior lights at night, safer without kerosene lanterns burning, cleaner as we aren’t pouring kerosene into lamps and petrol into a generator all the time, plus more regular hot showers. The virtues of Umeme!
posted by Kevin at 3:07 AM
2 Comments:
Everytime i think my life is little difficult here i just have to go and read your blog. This past week the power meter on our church building caught fire and exploded leaving us with out power. We are in the process of trying to get it corrected with no real end in sight. Fun stuff as I am sure you could tell us even more than you have already. Even worse case scenerios don't put us out as long as you have been out.
I am glad you have power again. You are troopers. Love you all and miss you. May God continue to watch over you.
I'm kinda sad thinking you won't have so many candle light dinners anymore. It was fun adjusting our eyes to see in the dark with you. It was also fun explaining to a 2 year old why I couldn't just turn on the lights. :) We miss you and Taylor still talks about you. He told me that Elijah and Josiah were in his Bible class last Wed night.
Love,
Amanda
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