Batteries, plumbing, electricity, water and fundis

27 May, 2004

 

Dear Friends and Family,

 

Today we're having a typical bad day in Dar es Salaam.  It is the kind of day that only can occur in a place like this, and it takes days, maybe even weeks of build up to create. 

 

Let's start with the car.  You may remember that we are driving a Monster Truck here, more affectionately now called "The Monster".  Well, I drive The Monster every day, since I do the kid pick-up and the family shopping.  It has a super-duper alarm which I religiously set every time I leave the car anywhere - that is except for our own garage.  Part of the super, or maybe duper, of this alarm is a touch sensitive warning.  You touch the car, it makes a noise.  The reason that I don't set the alarm in our garage is because once I set it and at 8 in the morning on a Saturday, the gardener decided to wash the car INSIDE the garage!  We were sleeping in, but he set the alarm off at least 8 times!  In order to disarm the alarm, you have to push the button on the remote, AND open the driver's side door.  I was in my nightie so I didn't really want to go out and open the door.  The gardener was undeterred from the washing, and continued, so I eventually had to get dressed and go out and disarm the alarm.  Rob was traveling, so it was up to me.  I won't go into why the gardener didn't just stop washing after the 2nd or 3rd time the alarm went off - we just don't go there.  Anyway, in order to prevent this from happening, I don't set the alarm in the garage.  There is a lock on the gearshift, AND a guard all night, AND a gate to have to go through to steal the car.  I think it's pretty safe, even without the alarm.  Rob wants me to set the alarm.

 

The other night, I didn't set the alarm.  I also didn't close the door all the way, and the interior light was on.  The battery died.  If I had set the alarm, I would have known that a door was ajar because the alarm wouldn't have turned on. 

 

There are 2 batteries in The Monster.  It needs them both to start.  We had to jump start the car, and then keep it running to charge them up.  Rob checked them, he thought they needed a little water, so he put some in. 

 

The batteries wouldn't keep a charge.  We went to a garage to put a slow charge on the batteries.  Their power was out and would be out for hours, and their generator wouldn't work, so no charges on that day.  We did a little investigative work though, and it seemed that there was maybe a little short somewhere between the batteries.  We could jump the car from one, but not the other.  Hmm.

 

On Monday, the driver at Rob's office had to come and drain the battery acid and refill them with new acid.  I won't tell you where the drained out acid went, but there's a nice white circle on the driveway - near where the kids play and the dog lies. 

 

Now, if the car sits for too long, it doesn't really want to start right up, it has a little drag on the battery and then finally starts.  It goes fine for the rest of the day, as long as it doesn't sit too long.   The driver thinks there's still a little short somewhere, and doesn't think it needs a charge, so Rob disconnected one of the terminals when we parked the Monster last night, and it started better today.  We also have to turn off the radio and A/C when we start so the batteries don't have to work so hard.

 

Today I was having a little adventure with my friends.  We were meeting one lady downtown.  I never drive downtown, the Monster is too big and the streets are too small and full of people.  I drove into downtown today.  I made an illegal turn (oops!) and then got in trouble with the police.  A foot patrol policeman in a brown uniform pulled me over and started fussing at me for making that illegal turn.  He said that I would have to pay a fine, get out of the car and go look at the sign that clearly said I couldn't make that turn, and promise not to do it again.  I wasn't born yesterday, so I said I'd be happy to take the ticket on paper to the police station and pay the fine, and no, I would never make that turn again.  He said there was a problem, you see there are so many people at the police station that it would take a long time - maybe I should just pay him.  I told him that I didn't care how long it took, I'd do it the correct way if he'd just give me a paper telling me where to go and how much to pay.  Here's where it got fun - He got mad!  He said that I was not trusting him! (Shame on me!) I can't compare Tanzania to my own country, I had to trust him.  I asked how much the fine was - 20,000 Shillings (around $20).  I said, no way, that was what the fine would be in the US.  I thought maybe 5,000 Shillings was more like it, but I wanted a paper ticket!  Then I called my friend who we were meeting and she came and helped.  She smiled sweetly and asked what I had done wrong, she apologized and said I'd never do it again and asked where the police wanted me to go to pay.  He said that there was a problem because I didn't trust him, so he'd have to come with us to the station.  She said fine, we'll meet him there, but we never put anyone into our cars with us - that was the rule.  He got mad at her then, and she said that she'd go into her office and get her attorney.  He said why do you need an attorney, she said to speak better Swahili, he got real mad then because she didn't think he spoke English well enough.  You can see how this was going.  Then, she did the best thing of all, she asked him why a foot patrol policeman was making traffic stops.  He decided at this point that if I would get out of the car and come over and see the sign and promise never to make that turn again, he'd let me go without a fine.  So I did, and we were off.  Turns out, traffic policemen wear white and policemen in brown don't have jurisdiction over traffic violations.  I was the intended victim of a shakedown.  I'd heard about shakedowns, that's why I wanted a paper ticket.  That's also why I thought it was only worth 5000 Shillings - that was about all I would pay for a shakedown, if I had to pay at all. 

 

This isn't the end of the car troubles, though.  My lady friends and I then left the center of town and did our shop - fun shopping, not food shopping.  When we were done, we decided to go try out an antique dealer one of my friends had heard of back in the center, where we may be able to find real, old, Zanzibar Trunks!  Even after that bad start in the center, the lure of an old Zanzibar Trunk was too much for me, and we decided to go back and check it out.  Besides, I had to go back to the scene of the crime and drop my friend off again.  I parked the Monster in a nice messy puddle where nobody else wanted to park and we went in to the store.  When I came back, the side mirrors were gone!  Rob had turned down the touch sensitive alarm to prevent the issue mentioned above with the gardener and the washing, and the car sat there silently and let somebody yank those mirrors right off without so much as a squeak.  My friend spoke to her husband, and he said that it was our fault for parking downtown and NOT paying someone hanging around to watch the car.  If I had paid someone, I'd still have my mirrors.  That is apparently what "Paid Parking" means here.

 

The car isn't the only problem, however.  Yesterday right at 5 PM, we had a power outage.  You know, that's when you start the cooking for dinner.  The power was off for 4 hours.  We got to go out for dinner!  We HAD to go out to eat dinner, because the generator battery is also dead.  This is starting to be a theme.  I had just finished putting the meat delivery into the freezer.  We get our meat and milk delivered to our house.  That way it is better quality, and we can freeze what we don't want to use immediately.  I had just put $60 worth of meat into the freezer, and the power went out for 4 hours!  Great!

 

But the real problem is the Water.  We have plumbing problems again!  This time the problem started at least a week ago.  Since January, when the entire plumbing system was replaced, we have added to our daily routine a trip out to the pump house.  We eat dinner, do the dishes, have a swim, push the button.  After calling the Fundi (Swahili for repairman) nearly daily for those weeks in January when we had such troubles, I finally decided that I would learn all about the system so I could fix it myself.  After all, the Fundi would come for some 5 minutes and then we'd have water.  I found out that if I pushed the manual switch to turn on the pump, we could get the tank on the roof filled and we'd never run out of water.  We have been pushing the manual start on the pump daily ever since - and have had no problems - well, none that are worth mentioning.  Last week, the manual start button on the pump stopped working.  We had to call the landlord, who brought a fundi.  This time the problem was the switch that floats in the underground tank.  The purpose of this switch is to prevent the pump from burning out trying to pump from an empty tank.  This switch is electric - we didn't need a plumber, we needed an electrician.  Who'd a thought!  Anyway, the garden pump also has one of these switches, and it was working.  I told the fundi to put the garden switch on the house pump and then I didn't care if it took a few days to get a new switch.  The most interesting thing about these switches is that the electrical line dangles in the underground tank and the splice is about 4 feet under the water!  Seems like a bad idea to me, and I'm not surprised the switch shorted out.  The electrician replaced the switch on the pump, said something about the problem being that no electricity was getting to the switch, not that the switch was bad.  Then why he replaced it, I have no idea.  I was told that the problem was fixed.  The next day, everything worked fine, we actually thought that the system was working as planned, and that the daily trips to the pump house were no longer necessary.  The next day, we had no water for our morning showers!  We also couldn't get the pump to start.  Back to square one.  The landlord and fundi came again.  This time, they decided to take the pump to the pump store to get it checked out.  There is a 6 month warrantee on this pump, which was the second one that was installed in the system in January. 

 

Yesterday, the landlord called Rob, the pump needs a part that has to be sent from Nairobi.  It might come next week.  In the mean time, we have a garden hose running up to the tank on the roof.  When we think we may be running out of water, we turn it on for a 1/2 hour or so.  Not as clean as the old system, but workable.

 

Last night, after we filled up the tank, after the power outage, after we went to bed, we sprang a leak.  This time in a little flexible hose right by the kitchen door - outside the kitchen, thank goodness.  The night time guard found it.  He did what everyone here does, he found a piece of rubber strap and tied it around the hose.  Rubber straps are the Duct Tape of the Tanzanians.  If an American had found the leak, he'd have gone for duct tape first.  The Guard found the leak because the 1000 liters of water in the tank on the roof was leaking out all over the sidewalk.  Rob found out this morning when he went to take his shower.  There was no water!

 

I've given up waiting for   plumbing fundis.  I had an adventure planned for today, and plumbing was not going to stop me.  Rob asked a colleague at work to call a fundi he had used in the office, and I assumed that when I came home it would be fixed.  It wasn't.  I went to the corner shop that has all the hardware and plumbing you need, Home Depot Tanzanian style, and bought a new flexible hose and some pipe tape.  I tried with the assistance (I wouldn't say help) of the gardener, and finally gave up.  One feature of this particular job that made it a real treat was that the valve that is supposed to cut the water flow to the joint I was working with didn't actually stop the water flow.  And it was hot water.  This job was otherwise a no brainer - take out the old hose, put in the new.  It didn't fit.  When Rob came home, he made an attempt, and with a few spare parts we found in the storage container, he was able to fix the leak.  Took him about 15 minutes - but he didn't have the assistance of the gardener, he got to work alone.  It cost me 2500 shillings.  It would have cost me 30 or 40,000 if I'd had a fundi come, plus the frustration of having to wait all day for him to show up.  Hot water in the kitchen sink - what a luxury.  In the mean time, we still have the hose to the roof, but you hardly notice it.  It looks just like the water hookups at the KOA campgrounds and the trailer parks in Virginia.  Only thing missing is the Kudzu!

 

29 May, 2004

 

Oops, I never quite finished and sent the above.  We had an all day power outage on Friday, and still no generator.  When Rob's office called about the power, the electric company told them that they had notified us via the morning newspapers that the power would be out all day, and Saturday too.  We got the generator battery charged and by 4:00, we had power.  So did everyone else at 5:00.  Today, we had no outage at all, even though we were ready - generator charged, full of diesel, no outage!  Rob's office, however, ran out of power.  Remember we have to buy electricity ahead, and they didn't.  The hub for my satellite is at Rob's office.  If they have no power, I have no internet. 

 

All's well that ends well, however.  Rob's staff had to come in today to do some last minute work for "Milk Week" (you have to ask Rob), and they also bought some electricity.  Now, before I encounter any further obstacles, I'll send this.  I hope your adventures are less frustrating and costly than ours, and that you never experience running out of water - especially after you've soaped up at 5:30 AM.

 

We'd love to hear about your daily struggles, drop us a line.

 

Barb