Another Electricity Adventure

Finally, after those weeks of having no electricity and fighting with the electrical company to repair the situation, things had improved.  The power still went on and off at times throughout the day, but it always came back on and was in unison with the rest of the town, or our neighbors at least.  Adrienne and I were totally content.

The partially cut up papaya tree

Then, Saturday April 13^th, while enjoying a beautiful afternoon playing cards outside, we heard a strange crashing sound, soon realizing that it was one of our papaya trees falling down.  Of course, during its crash, it not only took out our nicely repaired fence, but also the power line linking our house to the electrical post on the road.  Perfect…

Being Saturday, neither one of us was hopeful that the electricians would be at their office, but I headed over to the EDM (Electricidade de Mocambique) office, just in case, determined to try to get this electricity problem fixed as soon as possible, if I could.  Of course, no one was at the office, but the guard instructed me to go to the electricity director’s house and talk to him there.  Also not at home, but after last times adventures, I now had his phone number and called him up.

Perhaps stretching the truth a bit, I informed him how the tree had fallen down and that there was now an exposed live wire that was dangerous to leave and should be repaired as soon as possible, emphasizing that we would pay to have the electricians come out today to fix it.  He responded saying, “Senhora, today is Saturday, we do not work today.  It is a day to be with our women and rest.  I will cut the wire, but we cannot repair it until Monday.”  He was not falling for my tricks of persuasion.

So I headed home to help Adrienne and Adam take care of what to do with this huge fallen papaya tree.  Arriving there, there was already a gentleman helping them cut it up with his machete.  Actually, when I arrived, Adrienne had the machete in hand as she wacked away at the top section of the tree while a group of about 20 children watched.  This man had just been walking by and offered to help, showing a generosity that is very common in the Mozambican culture. 

After finishing cutting up the tree, it was then time to tackle the fence.  Using rope made from tires, we re-secured the grass and bamboo fence, giving our audience a little dance show as I stood holding the fence in place (much to their amusement).  Finally, after a couple hours of work, we were finished and everything was as good as new, minus the electricity situation.

While being content with waiting until Monday to see if EDM would come, Sunday morning a neighbor Professor Shamu (yup, like the whale.  How would you explain to a Mozambican that he has the same name as a famous orca whale?) came to the house determined to repair the problem that day.  Apparently his house and six other houses behind us also did not have electricity due to the falling of the tree.  Shamu and his friend went on a mission to locate a ladder that would be tall enough to reach the electrical post.  Metal ladders are an extreme rarity here; People instead lash together bamboo to construct ladders typically only about 10 feet tall.  (It’s not like there are many tall, multi-level buildings then need to climb up.  For reaching those high up coconuts or papayas, they just climb up the trunks without needing ladders.)  Shamu came back with two ladders, confident in the fact that he could just lash them together to create a taller ladder secure enough to reach the post.  Adrienne, Adam, and I certainly had our doubts.

Next, we needed to find an electrician.  It is not unusual for people to do electrical work without any form of training.  For instance, many houses splice the electricity lines themselves, sidestepping the involvement (and payment) of any sort of electrical company.  Not the safest, but that’s the least of their concerns.  Knowing this we figured it would be pretty easy to find someone who could repair our line. 

Lightly drizzling as the electrician works

After asking some neighbors, we got the number of an actually qualified electrician who actually knew how to do work like this and would be more than competent.  Though we still had our doubts about the ladder…

Shamu climbed up first, testing out the ladder’s strength.  It held together.  So up went the electrician, though somewhat tentatively.  After about only ten minutes of work, everything was back to normal!  He even repaired the street light that had been out for as long as I have been here! 

All in all, it was quite the unexpected adventure, but due to the generosity of some Mozambicans, we came out in an actually better situation than we had started.  We are now on the same phase as the rest of our neighbors, so now we won’t be the only ones without electricity at times when everyone else around us does!  At least I hope so…