Bad Outlets

I have been in Uganda about 14 months now.  I got this, no problem.  Well, I recently learned I still have a lot to learn about living and working here.

When a Chinese congregation rented our church facilities, one of their leaders tried to use an electrical outlet.  It didn’t work.  We solved the problem by finding an extension cord and using another outlet.  She was so annoyed, I promised her I would check all of the church’s outlets.  No problem.

Typical example of a bad outlet

You see, in Uganda electrical outlets can be fragile.  Combine the 230 voltage with a low quality, Chinese-made outlet and you have the recipe for fireworks, actually sparks and equipment failure (melted metal and plastic).  I had replaced about ten bad outlets in my rental house, so I was already familiar with this problem and knew I could fix it.

As if the generator and inverter batteries weren’t already giving me enough problems… electricity is part of the basic infrastructure and the church uses several electrical items, so all of the outlets needed to work.  Ok, I thought, I’m the church’s Operations Director.  I’ll have every electrical outlet checked and fix all the broken ones.  Easy enough.

Well, sixteen outlets were bad.  Ack, sixteen!?!  I wasn’t expecting that many.  No problem, I immediately authorized funds to replace every bad outlet with a high quality British-made replacement.

Then one of the church pastors overheard my conversation and said, “You might want to check with David before you do that.”  David used to be the church’s facilities manager.  I wasn’t told why I had to speak with him, just that I should.  So, I did.

David told me that he had disabled several of the church’s electrical outlets because churchgoers were charging their mobile phones during service only to have their phones stolen.  The church ended up having to buy replacement phones to appease the angry church members.

“So I disabled many outlets by disconnecting a wire inside,” David told me.  “Do not tempt them to charge their phones.  If you fix the outlets, eventually you will have angry people demanding a replacement phone.  It’s not worth it,” David cautioned.

Then I came up with another brilliant idea.  We’ll post signs stating that the church is not responsible for lost or stolen items.  Problem solved!

“But people will plug in laptops during [church] service,” he continued.  “If the power fails, we use the generator.  But the generator is just [powerful] enough for the lights and sound system.  If people use their laptops there will not be enough power, and the sound system will not work.”

Oops.  I had assumed that our generator was strong enough to power everything.  Well, it’s back to the drawing board to consider other options.

Of course my approach was that of a typical Westerner living in Africa.  I rushed in to fix something without really understanding the bigger picture, or rather the Uganda-way-of-life picture.  I decided to take a step back and consider David’s advice carefully.  His cautionary words, “It’s not worth it,” echoed in my mind....

At the end of the day, only eight outlets were really bad, so we replaced those and left the others disabled.

I learned some good lessons from this experience.  First, my way of thinking and reacting is still that of a Westerner.  Sometimes our way of doing things isn’t always the best way in Uganda.  I’ve learned that rather than rushing to fix something, as if I know best, I must keep an very open mind and look at the bigger picture, remembering that I am, after all, living in a different culture.

Humbly yours from Kampala, Uganda,

John Eastham