May14 Written by:Kayle
5/14/2009 3:57 AM
So 10 days ago, there was a dip in the electricity and the lights flickered all over the house one windy night. That was all it took to knock out one phase of our three phased house: all electrical sockets on the first floor (and some on the second floor) as well as the electrical oven were out. If one phase had to go, we were glad it was this one as we could adjust our lives and all of our small electrical appliances until the power company (ZESA) sorted out the problem. I called ZESA everyday to report the fault and asked if I could get the problem fixed. Everyday I got the same answer, "We're coming today" or "We'll be there tomorrow"...however, tomorrow would never actually come. We were adjusting fine with the inconvienence of partial power until we realized that we had to stop pumping water from our well as the pump needs all 3 phases of electricity or else it will burn out. Ahh! Now THIS is a problem as without water, the gardens and grass on this property will wither up and die. Years of planting and hard work have gone into this garden and I was not about to let it go brown. So after getting the run around, I finally resorted to going down to ZESA myself and seeing if I could pick up some workmen and bring them back with me (as often transportation is an issue: no fuel, no working trucks, etc.).
I got to the ZESA office and talk to anyone and everyone who seem to be in charge, but they all tell me that they are no longer allowed to let workmen be carried in private vehicles...and guess how many ZESA trucks are working? ONE for all of Bulawayo. And, of course, they are WAY behind on fixing old power lines or burnt out fuses that need to be replaced. So finally I go outside to where these young ZESA apprentices-in-training are. These guys were waiting to take their exams on becoming an official ZESA workman. I was telling them about my woes and they were sympathizing with me since all that I got accomplished was to once again give ZESA my address and phone
number and they said they'd call me (which of course was not going to
happen).
As I was trying my luck at getting one of these apprentices to
come out with me to fix my problem, one of the apprentices said, "There's THE truck pulling in right now...go ask them!" So I run over to the guy in charge of THE one and only truck...he confirmed that I couldn't take any workmen..."Come on, can't we just bend the rules just this once?" I asked (as the "rules" here are always changing and are usually never hard or fast). He said, sorry but he couldn't...I told him that I had some really nice bread and tea for them at my home as a way of saying thank you if they would come and fix the problem. He smiled but said they are very busy throughout the city with just one truck. So finally I asked, "What about after hours?" meaning: Can I hire you to come out and fix the problem after hours? So he said reluctantly that he'd come out between 5 and 5:30pm; but, I really didn't think he would
come. However, while we were eating dinner, we noticed that the phase came back! So I ran outside and the truck pulled into the driveway. I gave the workers money for the job and bread as a thank you...of course I also got the workman's name and phone number for any problems in the future where we need to hire him again.
So in this lies the "ethical dilemma": if one pays their electric bills, then they are paying for their electrical lines to be fixed and maintained. So technically you should not have to pay for workmen to come out and fix your lines since you have already paid your bills. In a world where this process works, then this is fine. But in a broken system where the electrical company doesn't make enough money to upkeep their trucks or can't find the spare parts they need to keep up their trucks, what do you do? When their rules won't allow you to help transport workers and you will literally be waiting for months to get your problem fixed, then what else can you do? Some would argue that I paid a bribe to get the workers out to fix my problem; however, I think that paying men to come out after hours to fix my problem is actually hiring them out for a service. So my conscious is clear.
Tonight was filled with excitement! Now we can water the garden once again (as I was having nightmares of a brown and dead garden...) and we don't have to make our coffee or microwave our food in the laundry room, where the outlets were working.
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