In which I discuss electricity...
*****
There have been some interesting developments while I was gone from my site (traveling to a conference, being sick in Accra, going to a trainers’ workshop - a total of about a month), chiefly of which is that lights have now arrived. Hold your applause and mild celebration on my behalf. As with anything in Ghana, it’s not as simple as it sounds.
There have been phone poles with wires attached running the length of the main road in my village for, I believe, four years (it always fluctuates depending on the person telling the story). The wires? Had electricity coursing through them and led from the district capital out to the main road - about 70K.
Only since December has any sort of mobilization in my village been happening. The progress went achingly slow, but eventually there were poles placed within the community and wires being attached from them to the main lines. After that, the workers went back to the south for Christmas and never came back. So my house sat, taunting me with the glaringly empty light sockets and the electrical outlets that stared at me like some demented, white Jack-O-Lantern for a total of six months.
And life moved on.
Just before I left, people were saying that the lights were coming soon - a mantra I’d heard since I stepped fun in my tangpanga (village). I paid it no mind, but when I came back, it appeared that they were all right this time! I spent last Monday waiting patiently at my house for the lightsmen to come - I’d told them in the morning that I wanted them to come, that I would pay them, my house was just over there. They said ‘fine - we will be there soon.’
I’ve learned since coming here that ‘soon’ is a very relative term that could mean five minutes, or in the Biblical sense of Christ’s return.
And so I sat. And waited. All day. It got to be four, which is typical quitting time, but not always necessarily I walked back into town to find the men and it turns out that, oh, they have gone! Couldn’t believe it, but…well, yeah, I kinda did. I assumed they would be back the next day so I went back with a shrug of my shoulders and only mildly disappointed - it wasn’t like I had any electrical paraphernalia to hook up to my outlets at the moment anyway.
The next day, the men didn’t return, but I was assured by my townspeople that they would be back, maybe this afternoon…?
And so I sat. And I waited. All day. I could’ve gone to farm, but I knew, with my track record, that they would’ve shown up as soon as I hit the path to the peanut fields.
Nothing.
Same thing the next day. And the next.
Four days in, I decided that, you know what, they’re probably not coming back any time soon. I checked with some of the guys in the know in town and they said that the men had moved on to other villages along the road and it would be a while before they came back. Not that surprised. Of course everyone in my village has lights but me. That might not be exactly true, but everyone I’ve talk to or seen with wires running to their house has lights.
I think a year ago I would’ve been bitter. But now? Not at all. I find it hilarious, ironic and inevitably inevitable. It makes for a good story, like most of my trials and struggles and miniscule triumphs.
I’ve bought a fan and a voltage regulator and later this afternoon I’ll add some blue fluorescent bulbs and surge protectors to my bag. They’ll probably collect a little dust before I get to use them.
So now I’m still waiting. By the time the men come back, the district may have already arrived and had their big to-do with pomp and circumstance to ‘unveil’ the transformer that has been illegally tapped into for the past few weeks. It’s just for show - the higher-ups know that people use the power before it’s been put up for official use, so nothing will happen. But maybe if they come, I won’t have to pay any money - when you get it done through the right channels, it’s free.
There have been some interesting developments while I was gone from my site (traveling to a conference, being sick in Accra, going to a trainers’ workshop - a total of about a month), chiefly of which is that lights have now arrived. Hold your applause and mild celebration on my behalf. As with anything in Ghana, it’s not as simple as it sounds.
There have been phone poles with wires attached running the length of the main road in my village for, I believe, four years (it always fluctuates depending on the person telling the story). The wires? Had electricity coursing through them and led from the district capital out to the main road - about 70K.
Only since December has any sort of mobilization in my village been happening. The progress went achingly slow, but eventually there were poles placed within the community and wires being attached from them to the main lines. After that, the workers went back to the south for Christmas and never came back. So my house sat, taunting me with the glaringly empty light sockets and the electrical outlets that stared at me like some demented, white Jack-O-Lantern for a total of six months.
And life moved on.
Just before I left, people were saying that the lights were coming soon - a mantra I’d heard since I stepped fun in my tangpanga (village). I paid it no mind, but when I came back, it appeared that they were all right this time! I spent last Monday waiting patiently at my house for the lightsmen to come - I’d told them in the morning that I wanted them to come, that I would pay them, my house was just over there. They said ‘fine - we will be there soon.’
I’ve learned since coming here that ‘soon’ is a very relative term that could mean five minutes, or in the Biblical sense of Christ’s return.
And so I sat. And waited. All day. It got to be four, which is typical quitting time, but not always necessarily I walked back into town to find the men and it turns out that, oh, they have gone! Couldn’t believe it, but…well, yeah, I kinda did. I assumed they would be back the next day so I went back with a shrug of my shoulders and only mildly disappointed - it wasn’t like I had any electrical paraphernalia to hook up to my outlets at the moment anyway.
The next day, the men didn’t return, but I was assured by my townspeople that they would be back, maybe this afternoon…?
And so I sat. And I waited. All day. I could’ve gone to farm, but I knew, with my track record, that they would’ve shown up as soon as I hit the path to the peanut fields.
Nothing.
Same thing the next day. And the next.
Four days in, I decided that, you know what, they’re probably not coming back any time soon. I checked with some of the guys in the know in town and they said that the men had moved on to other villages along the road and it would be a while before they came back. Not that surprised. Of course everyone in my village has lights but me. That might not be exactly true, but everyone I’ve talk to or seen with wires running to their house has lights.
I think a year ago I would’ve been bitter. But now? Not at all. I find it hilarious, ironic and inevitably inevitable. It makes for a good story, like most of my trials and struggles and miniscule triumphs.
I’ve bought a fan and a voltage regulator and later this afternoon I’ll add some blue fluorescent bulbs and surge protectors to my bag. They’ll probably collect a little dust before I get to use them.
So now I’m still waiting. By the time the men come back, the district may have already arrived and had their big to-do with pomp and circumstance to ‘unveil’ the transformer that has been illegally tapped into for the past few weeks. It’s just for show - the higher-ups know that people use the power before it’s been put up for official use, so nothing will happen. But maybe if they come, I won’t have to pay any money - when you get it done through the right channels, it’s free.