Electricity just returned to my
house after a 48-hour absence, the longest it has ever been out. Although my brief span without power wasn’t really more
than an inconvenience, the situation that led to its shut-off nearly drove me
to my breaking point. And I think it speaks to a world of larger issues that
plague Cameroon and (maybe even) points to why development work in Cameroon can
be so frustrating.
To give
some quick background, I should explain that my apartment is wired for
electricity with the local power company. And my electricity is always quite
consistent; living near so many local bureaucrats all but guarantees that. As a
(bitter) Volunteer living in a smaller town told me when I moved in, “the
lights never go out in Upstation”. This comes as a harsh contrast to much of
the country, where power outages are frequent and can last as long as months.
Some smaller villages are still waiting to be connected to the grid and exist
in a world of candles and small solar panels.
The one
qualm that I had with my connection to the grid was that I share a bill and
meter with one of my neighbors. Each month one of us would receive the bill,
show it to the other, and then we would divide it into our rough shares. He
always took care of actually paying the bill; the world of Cameroonian utility
companies is one that I’m happy to avoid whenever possible. But the bills
stopped coming a few months ago, and I just assumed that my neighbor was taking
care of them. He’s a busy man and works as a regional distributor for popular
products such as Pringles and Huggies diapers. We have a good relationship, and
I assumed he would ask me for the money at some point in the future.
So imagine
my surprise when I came home after a short trip to find that my power had been
switched off. A short conversation with another set of neighbors told me that
the utility company had come around in my absence to switch it off. Apparently
the bill hadn’t been paid for three months. And to make matters worse, we had
some how racked up a total bill of nearly 150,000 CFA (nearly $300). Given that
my monthly electricity bill typically hovers around $10, I knew this wasn’t
going to end well.
My
bill-sharing neighbor was nowhere to be found, and a quick call told us that he
was in the capital city of Yaoundé, a 7-hour trip (on a good day). He told me
to sit tight, and that he would be back in less than a week. Probably. I was
told that I could call a technician from the electric company that would be
happy to come switch my power back on for a 5,000CFA bribe. But I decided that
probably wasn’t the right path to go down (and he didn’t come even when we
called).
At this
point I was beginning to get a little hysterical. It wasn’t the prospect of a
night or two without power that freaked me out, but that this was a problem
that might not be able to resolve for the rest of my service. I know that many
of my friends have lived nearly two years without any kind of real electricity,
but my resiliency stores are wearing thin. I wasn’t in the mood to go out and
buy a small solar light. And I certainly wasn’t in the mood to live in the only
house in the neighborhood without working lights.
Enter the
Peace Corps community to save the day. My friends were full of suggestions
about how to proceed, and one recommended that I connect my house to a
neighbor’s existing connection. Her postmate had done something similar, but
unfortunately in his case all of his neighbors were less than honest. In the
end he had to move out of house because he ran out of neighbors to buy
electricity from. He also couldn’t get behind the idea of living without lights
in a neighborhood full of electricity.
Bouba, the
Bamenda Peace Corps logistician, was the true hero and got my landlady (who
lives next door) to allow me to connect to her house’s power. I had trouble
believing that this would be a realistic solution, but that’s exactly what
happened. An electrician simply ran a cable directly between our houses, and
just like that, the darkness lifted. Now the only remaining issue is paying my
landlady each month for the power that I use. And dealing with the outstanding
power bill…but I’m hoping to put that off for a little bit.
As happy as
I am to have power back, I know that I’m playing a risky game. Adding the
complication of power consumption to the relationship that I currently maintain
with my landlady certainly has the potential for disaster. My friend Sarah’s
take on the issue is that she hoped that this situation doesn’t “get bad in the
remaining time” I’ll live here, which had been my exact feeling.
This
brings me to my original point, which is that life in Cameroon often feels like
a race against the clock. Part of that is certainly the limited schedule on
which Volunteers operate; we know going in that we’ll only be here for about
two years. But the way of life here is also much more imminent than anything I
remember back home. Things both break and are fixed with alarming regularity and
the focus seems to be on the current status, rather than long-term prospects.
Maybe this is a result of limited resources and an economy of action, but I’m
not convinced. It seems to stem from an entirely different mindset, one that
chooses immediacy over endurance. It’s the reason that many items are sold in
single-use quantities, even if it means they cost more over time. Life over
here often feels like the antithesis of our Costco big-box obsession, and is
focused on having enough to make it through the day.
Obviously,
I’m oversimplifying. In a cultural context the concern for immediate problems
over long-term solutions makes quite a bit of sense. But as an outsider, it can
be incredibly frustrating. I can’t wait to get into a car and not assess the
extent to which it is on the border of collapse. Or deal with a technician that
is prepared to fix something the right way, and not the cheap way.
As for the larger development issues, I can’t
help but wonder if this cultural difference plays some role in the general
dissatisfaction. What if the Western focus on sustainability is permanently up
against the Cameroonian emphasis on immediate solutions? That’s a larger topic
to discuss, but is one that I can’t help but think about as my immediate role
in the world of international development draws to a close.
No comments:
Post a Comment