Paying for electricity is done differently in Tanzania
than in the States. Here, we pre-pay for
the service instead of getting a bill after the power is used. The way it works is that when power is
purchased, the buyer is given a receipt with a 20-digit code number which must
be keyed in to a meter attached to the house.
That will re-load the meter with the appropriate amount of Kwh, which
are shown on the meter's digital display.
Sounds simple, doesn't it? Nothing is simple here. There is no local office of the electric
company where one could make payments in person. However, there are several ways to make the
purchase. One local bank allows
customers to do so through an option on their ATM--the closest thing to
internet banking I have seen here. Unfortunately,
that is not the bank where we have our accounts.
Many people do not have bank accounts or credit cards at
all, so there has arisen an industry of financial services. The industry leaders are MPesa, Voda Money,
and Airtel Money. The idea is that a
person gives an agent (usually the owner of a small shop) some cash, and the
agent deposits it in an account with one of these companies, and links it to
the customer's cell phone. Then, using
the phone, the customer can pay bills or transfer money to other people.
I have used one of these agents before. This shop works as something of a clearing
house. I give them my money and they run
it through their own account (I don't
know with which company), and then forwards the receipt to my phone. Last week, I went to pay for more power, but
that particular shop was jammed with about a dozen customers, so I decided to "save
time" by going to another recommended vendor.
The new shop took my 30,000 shillings (That's less than
$20. Not much, you say, but about 9% of
my monthly Peace Corps stipend.), and put it in an Airtel Money account for my
phone. This was the first time I had
used that service. When I tried to
access the account, though, the password was rejected and the account
locked. The agent kindly helped me call
the company's customer service line and I was told that the password would be
reset in 72 hours and then the account would be unlocked. Those 3 days came and went, but by that time
the entire Airtel Money system was down, and it remained down for 5 days.
Can you imagine customers of a financial service in the
U.S. tolerating not being able to access their money for that amount of time (short
of a natural disaster, like a hurricane)?
I'm sure many people here were in great difficulty. Happily, my compulsive nature led me to try to
make this purchase 10 days before our meter was due to run out.
Finally, a week after my first attempt, my password was
reset, and the day after that I was able to use the account to make the
purchase. There was much rejoicing in
our household when I finally loaded the new Kwh on the meter.
However....that night we had a thunderstorm and lightning
fried our circuit breaker. The next
morning, while stumbling around in the dark, I heard a rustling noise from the
pantry. By the uncertain light of my
flickering flashlight, I found a mouse circling the inside of our washtub. I roused Mark from bed and unlocked the door
to let him quickly rush the trapped mouse outside.
Later in the morning,
the school handyman repaired the circuit breaker. So now life is good again, and I am grateful
to have power at all.
