It all started off innocently enough. The technicians from Dakar came up to service our air conditioners. It was in the middle of hot season and we found that our beloved living room air conditioner would go in and out. It was very disconcerting and there was a difference of opinion about whether it was a problem with the AC or a problem with the electric company giving us enough electricity.
The technicians came, did a full service and checked each plug. They confirmed with me that the AC's are in tip-top shape (especially now after their servicing) and that it was a problem of low "tension" (in French). I think in English it means actual wattage level. Meaning that if you are supposed to have 220, like here, you are only registering 198 (which was happening), which means you have low tension. Anyway technician dude said that the ACs need a minimum of 200 watts to run an AC and anything under that, they won't function---but just blow their fan. He said that the electric company needs to give us more tension and that can be controlled at their level.
Day One:
I said, So you can just contact them and get this changed??? I was surprised and slightly annoyed since we've had a 'tension' problem with our dining room AC since day one and knowing now that I could have done something about it was sort of depressing. He said yes, you just tell them what you have and they adjust the level in your house.
Well goodness gracious! How straight forward!! (oh little did I know). So I want to profit from the technicians visit so I make them all come to the telephone with me and call the electric company. I tell them its best that they describe the problem in full in technical speak so I would get a better reception. So doodad calls the company and talks to the receptionist who gives him a name and number. I get the technician to call him too but someone says he's out of the office traveling in Dakar. ooooh. But the person says to bring in a copy of an old bill when I come in, in person to request the tension change. Okay. that works.
Day Two: I coordinate with the project office to get a copy of one of our old bills. Brook brings it home for me.
Day Three: I go into the electric company and ask for the person I"m looking for. After stumbling into the wrong office, I am directed to the right door and I go in. I explain to the guy (who was there!) what the problem was and what we are looking for. He looks up my account on his computer. Okay he says. We will need to verify that you have low tension before we do anything about it. I will set up the visit and they will come around and check your electricity on Wednesday. I say okay. I go away.
Five days later: No electrician. I call the guy I talked too and say, Um yeah, I thought those guys were goign to show up. I waited around all day for them. The guy says, Oh, I will follow up with them and they will stop by. I say okay and hang up.
Another three days later: Still no visit. I decide to go in and talk to the people personally and see why the technicians haven't stopped around. The guy I've been dealing with is in a meeting, in fact everyone is. I am still holding my copy of my electric bill. The guardian totally gets into my business and wants to hear exactly why I want to meet with the guy and half the story. I decide to build up my social capital and I tell him. I get him involved. Then I tell him that the technicians were supposed to come already but they haven't. So I leave my electric bill copy with the guardian to give to the guy who is in a meeting. I tell him to tell him that I will come back after the sieste at 3pm.
Later on: I come back to the office and find the guythere. He is surprised. He said he had told them personally to stop by and check our electricity and they said I wasn't there. I asked him the date and time and I confirmed that in fact I was there. It was a Saturday when they stopped by. He was surprised and said he will schedule another visit. I thank him and go away.
Still later on: I talk with Binta the maid and ask her. We check around and the technicians did come on Saturday. They were around the corner and accidently when to the adjacent building which is attached to our house. The guardian directed them to just go around the corner and that's where our door is. The technicians said, "ah forget it" and they went away.
Three days later at 8pm: I get a doorbell ring. The technicians have come!!! They don't come in fully into the house. they only check our box at the front door. At the moment we were having tension problems so I was trying ot get them to come into the dining room to experience the non-tension. They refuse saying they can see everything from the control box. They check our 2 lines in the house and confirm low tension (Hooray, it is now official we have low tension). So I ask the technician what is the next step. Technician says that someone will contact me. But when? who will contact me? What is going to happen? He mumbled something but it was distinctly Unclear. He wasn't going to give me any other information so I dropped it. I decided to follow up with my guy again.
Two days later: I call my contact at the company and ask him if he had heard from the technicians (since no one had contacted me). No he says. No one said anything to me he says. I will follow up. I say okay and hang up.
Next day: I call him again and say, well what's the skinny. He says yes, they have confirmed low tension at your house. I say, Yes, so what is the process now? He says the technicians will come out and change it. I say okay.
Later on: I alert Binta and the staff to a possible visit from the electric company. I have to travl to Dakar for work and then Brook and I are going on vacation. I give her the name of our AC technician just in case anyone is confused.
Three weeks later: Brook and I return from vacation at the end of the month. About three days previous the technicians stopped by with a work order for our tension! YAY!!! But they request I stop in beforehand.
One day later: I go into the company and show the paper around. They say, Ah... okay, well you have to pay a fee and THEN we will schedule a visit to change your electricity. Sigh* Okay. So I sit down with another person and we go over all our appliances in the house. They come up with a figure that I owe them. Their computers aren't working so the guy just writes a figure on a piece of paper that I owe. I say, I can't give this to the office to pay, can you stamp it or make it official? He says no that they will stamp it when I pay. Okay, okay.
I say, by the way, since we've gotten back we've had our electricity short out on us several times. (I had called in my local technician guys to research it.. everyone was miffed and can't figure out why our electricity was shorting out... it was random and with different machines). Anyway, I say, yes, we've been having these shortage problems. The guy says come back tomorrow if it happens again and you can fill out a complaint form. I said, well it just happened last night again. He said, okay you can fill out the form now. So he directs me to someone else in the same room who had been following my process. She says, Okay, I need a copy of your old electric bill.
sigh*
I say, you guys already have it. I had given it to so-and-so. She says oh. Well I need that to write anything down so go get it back from so-and-so. I say Okay. I wander to my original contact's room and tell him that I need the copy of my bill back that this woman needs it to process my complaint form (or work order form). His desk is filled and I think he and I know that my bill is lost forever. He says, come with me. The lady had gone somewhere else. He sits at her desk and fills out the form himself about the electricity shorts at our house (without the old bill). Whew. I am pleased. I thank him and go away.
The following Monday: I bring my book, my checkbook, cash, my passport and some water to the company to patiently wait in line to pay my bill. I know these general payment rooms are always packed and the wait is long. I find out who is last in line and sit down and start to read my book. Someone else comes in. I manage to get through a couple of exciting chapters in the meantime. The guy behind me, a 'white collar' educated worker decides that our line system in this room (filled with chairs) is not efficient enough. He suggests that everyone sit side by side and when one person gets up the next person scoots over and sits in his seat. So we all move seats (like musical chairs) and sit in line that way. How ridiculous I think to myself. But I'm actually sick at this point and I don't feel like arguing. Finally other people start to listen to this guy behind me and everyone shuffles over to sit in line in the seats. There are about 25 people in front of me. So we sit in our little chairs and when one person gets up we all scoot over. It was a totally ridiculous process, especialy since everyone know who was following who in the first place. Plus you are scooting around the whole time, I make several appropriate disapproving under-my-breath clicking noises at the guy who proposed, rather imposed, this seating arrangement on the rest of us. I did manage to tell him as we were scooting seats that this process was not necessary and a waste of time. He chose to ignore me. Again, i didn't want to get in a fight. I just wanted to pay my bill. And finally, an hour said and done in total, I paid my bill. Hooray.
I take my bill and receipt and look for someone to schedule our visit to the house to upgrade our tension. I'm very excited. Luckily I ended up being in the same room with the scheduler And the technician.The technician is aware of our issue and says he will come tomorrow. Double hooray! I sense the end is near. I am pleased. I tell him if he can look at our electricity short problem too, that would be great. My contact assures me that the technician will tkae care of everything. I thank him and go away.
THE NEXT DAY: The technician actually comes. He opens up the box, unscrews some stuff and fiddles around. He tells me that one of my previous local technicians has upgraded our electricity from a 10 to a 30 without their permission and in fact that there is a fee associated with that. I said, oh really? We had no idea. So I guess one of our many technicians in the past gave us a free upgrade. So he said that when he originally came by to check our tension level he noticed that what we were noted at as having one electricity level (10) and what we actually had (30) was different. So he came while we were gone and changed our electricity level back to the original low level, which of course could not support the applicances in our house. I was angry and said, that's all well and good, but this process was not transparent and you should have clearly informed us. I said of course we had no idea this had happened, but why didn't you tell us? I said how stressed out we were at this probelm the past week with all our appliances shorting out, and couldn't figure out what it was. I told him how hard it was on our appliances too. He said that he told the guardian but that I was right in that he should have told us what he did.
Punch Line:
I said, what about the tension issue? he said our post, far away from the company, was the furthest away and that our tension level was as high as it was going to get. That the amount of electrricity coming to our house was different than tension. Doih! He said that the company had signalled this as a problem to the head Dakar office and that they were going to change the post so that more tension could come in the future. I said, okay. When? He said it's been programmed. I said for when? he said normally by the end of the year. (well obviously we're gone by the end of the year).
So the upshot is that we paid for what we've already had. He cut it while we were gone and then gave it back to us after we pay an exorbinent amont, but of course the tension (the original problem) is still the same. Ta-daa!!!
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