The best advice when it comes to electricity in Africa is ‘leave well alone’. This is because our experience in Tanzania as well as here is usually the wiring has been botched together with poor quality components. The common way of connecting wires is by twisting the ends together – this avoids the cost of buying junction boxes but does make crawling around lofts a bit more challenging.
The second best advice is, if you want something done well, do it yourself. (Also known as ‘Fools rush in…..’) and this is Malcolm’s approach. There is nothing he likes more than crawling into dark places and getting absolutely filthy. His first tasks were to replace with ceiling roses all the light-holders dangling through the ceiling from ends of electrical cable, and then to put in proper junction boxes to replace the botched wire connections. So having visited the town’s only specialist electrical component shop, and buying their entire stock (and therefore Kisoro’s entire stock?) of ceiling roses (4) and junction boxes (5), he borrowed the Diocese’s ‘ladder’ (made from off-cuts of 3x2) and went into the loft. Apart from being concerned about how large the African spiders might be as he destroyed their enormous webs, his discoveries included:
- the earth is the least important wire in Africa – most being cut short and not always connected to anything.
- however, this isn’t a problem as the earth of the main wire from the meter to the fuse box wasn’t connected to earth anyway, which explains why we’ve been getting small electric shocks from our laptop and electric cooker
- the lights in the lounge are connected to the power circuit, not to the fuse for the lights – as Malcolm discovered when (having carefully disconnected the lighting circuit) he was trying to install a junction box and there was a loud bang and a big spark. Fortunately he wasn’t touching the wire – and for the record, the 20 amp fuse didn’t blow either, which rather defeats its purpose.
- part of the excitement with her children was the arrival that day from Kampala of 4 of the ‘Big 5’. This is not the safari Big 5 animals you might hope to see ( Lion, Leopard, Rhinoceros, Elephant and Buffalo ) but:
- gas cooker, fridge, toilet seat and kitchen sink
- the missing item, the water heater was received later in the week and is desperately needed for the shower.
- Malcolm went shopping and was a bit puzzled when he bought from the market some spinach for 1000 shillings, and the stall holder seemed terribly pleased. When he got home Alan (the lady who cooks and cleans the Diocese ‘Guesthouse’) explained she would have paid no more than 200 shillings. Trust a man!!! However, this is not too serious a matter as 1000 shillings for 2 lbs of spinach is about 15p a pound.
- A pair of birds have built a nest just outside our office door, and immediately above the place Malcolm likes to sit to work (see photo in blog dated 17th September 2010). We will let you know if anything happens!
The sign this week is from Chihe Primary school whose mission is ‘to provide a conducive environment for better learning’. But it’s the sign in the lawn that caught Malcolm’s attention.
In case you think it is a bit explicit for a Primary school, we understand that children up to the age of 16 attend as they all receive education at the ‘Primary’ school level. Aids is a serious problem in Uganda with at one point the country having the highest incidence in the world estimated at 20% of the population carrying the virus, down to 6.7% now. There was a recent item on the BBC news web-site about some of the explicit literature used in Ugandan schools, in which the country’s President is quoted as saying “When a lion enters your village, you must raise the alarm loudly."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/9117296.stm
A new idea which we are copying from friends from University, Jeremy and Jerica Davies, who are now CMS Mission Partners in Kitui, Kenya, is a series entitled ‘You know you live in Africa when…..’. Our first item is in fact copied from them, but happens here too and so proves how true the statements are (including this week when Irene needed hand-outs for her students).
You know you live in Africa when….
... nobody can use the photocopier in the office because the person who keeps the key to that room has gone into town (or has the day off).
… you are not surprised to realise that the electric cable that emerges outside from the attic of your house, is connected to another cable by twisting the bare wire-ends together and left exposed to the weather and then returns into the house, is in fact the mains cable from the light switch to your lounge light
… part way through the lesson you are giving students a young goat comes into the room to escape the thunderstorm – it ws just another kid joining the class!
The second best advice is, if you want something done well, do it yourself. (Also known as ‘Fools rush in…..’) and this is Malcolm’s approach. There is nothing he likes more than crawling into dark places and getting absolutely filthy. His first tasks were to replace with ceiling roses all the light-holders dangling through the ceiling from ends of electrical cable, and then to put in proper junction boxes to replace the botched wire connections. So having visited the town’s only specialist electrical component shop, and buying their entire stock (and therefore Kisoro’s entire stock?) of ceiling roses (4) and junction boxes (5), he borrowed the Diocese’s ‘ladder’ (made from off-cuts of 3x2) and went into the loft. Apart from being concerned about how large the African spiders might be as he destroyed their enormous webs, his discoveries included:
- the earth is the least important wire in Africa – most being cut short and not always connected to anything.
- however, this isn’t a problem as the earth of the main wire from the meter to the fuse box wasn’t connected to earth anyway, which explains why we’ve been getting small electric shocks from our laptop and electric cooker
- the lights in the lounge are connected to the power circuit, not to the fuse for the lights – as Malcolm discovered when (having carefully disconnected the lighting circuit) he was trying to install a junction box and there was a loud bang and a big spark. Fortunately he wasn’t touching the wire – and for the record, the 20 amp fuse didn’t blow either, which rather defeats its purpose.
After several attempts he emerged from the loft more or less in one piece and we now have better lighting in our lounge – next week he hopes to install lights in the hall way which currently has none which makes it interesting when you walk around in bare feet at night. This is especially so as we have been warned that soon it will be the time when we may find Nairobi Flies near or in the house. These have the interesting feature that their body acid will badly burn your skin when they are crushed..
Other events of the week include:
- leaving Jenny to care for some sick babies we enjoyed lunch and Sunday afternoon with her children, Hannah and Joseph and Izzie.
- part of the excitement with her children was the arrival that day from Kampala of 4 of the ‘Big 5’. This is not the safari Big 5 animals you might hope to see ( Lion, Leopard, Rhinoceros, Elephant and Buffalo ) but:
- gas cooker, fridge, toilet seat and kitchen sink
- the missing item, the water heater was received later in the week and is desperately needed for the shower.
- Malcolm went shopping and was a bit puzzled when he bought from the market some spinach for 1000 shillings, and the stall holder seemed terribly pleased. When he got home Alan (the lady who cooks and cleans the Diocese ‘Guesthouse’) explained she would have paid no more than 200 shillings. Trust a man!!! However, this is not too serious a matter as 1000 shillings for 2 lbs of spinach is about 15p a pound.
- A pair of birds have built a nest just outside our office door, and immediately above the place Malcolm likes to sit to work (see photo in blog dated 17th September 2010). We will let you know if anything happens!
The sign this week is from Chihe Primary school whose mission is ‘to provide a conducive environment for better learning’. But it’s the sign in the lawn that caught Malcolm’s attention.
In case you think it is a bit explicit for a Primary school, we understand that children up to the age of 16 attend as they all receive education at the ‘Primary’ school level. Aids is a serious problem in Uganda with at one point the country having the highest incidence in the world estimated at 20% of the population carrying the virus, down to 6.7% now. There was a recent item on the BBC news web-site about some of the explicit literature used in Ugandan schools, in which the country’s President is quoted as saying “When a lion enters your village, you must raise the alarm loudly."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/9117296.stm
A new idea which we are copying from friends from University, Jeremy and Jerica Davies, who are now CMS Mission Partners in Kitui, Kenya, is a series entitled ‘You know you live in Africa when…..’. Our first item is in fact copied from them, but happens here too and so proves how true the statements are (including this week when Irene needed hand-outs for her students).
You know you live in Africa when….
... nobody can use the photocopier in the office because the person who keeps the key to that room has gone into town (or has the day off).
… you are not surprised to realise that the electric cable that emerges outside from the attic of your house, is connected to another cable by twisting the bare wire-ends together and left exposed to the weather and then returns into the house, is in fact the mains cable from the light switch to your lounge light
… part way through the lesson you are giving students a young goat comes into the room to escape the thunderstorm – it ws just another kid joining the class!
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