We are finally getting the lighting installed in the house in the next few weeks. We have been using "borrowed" electricity. This is reasonably humorous ...we have run a line from a neighbors house to our house and kept the wire in the air with bamboo poles. It is so rickety but seems to provide enough electricity to take care of half or more of the rooms at night.
We are incredibly lucky to have an Italian company that donated the equipment and got volunteers to install it all to European standards (the standards here involve a little skill and a lot of good luck and a few hospital visits). All we need is the electicity from the road (which is 400 meters away). So far so good!
Ok, I am lying about one thing...getting the electricity from the road is a huge problem. Yesterday I had a meeting with the men from the electric company that was just surreal. We arrived at the office and the men are outside by the pool drinking Johnny Walker Black (expensive Whiskey is popular with the rich folks here). You know it is not going to be good when you are sitting with three extremely obese men in towels and they are drinking. The bottom line is they say that even though another children's home we know had to pay a few hundred dollars for electricity, they want over 10.000 dollars from us for it.
We do not have the money so I am trying to figure out a way to let them save face (very important here) and let them back down from their demands. It will be very interesting to see how this plays out.
1 comment:
It's a "I think yer cheatin'" old west poker situation.
Convince them to donate the difference.
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