I wish I was an anthropologist.

Lately I've been going through official documentation on large-scale rural electrification projects, contrasting the different requirements and approaches to these Requests for Proposals on a country by country basis.

In many southern African countries (South Africa, Botswana, Namibia), official proposals normally list instances were other projects were tried , and most importantly, what went wrong. Whereas in East and West African countries, previous projects do not have the briefest mention.

Why is it that the culture in some African countries is that it's okay to 'lose face' from previous mistakes as long as you learn from them, whereas other places under no circumstances can you ever say what went wrong as someone's feelings will get hurt?

I'm inferring that this might be because of capitalism, where sustained businesses (which southern Africa, save Namibia, has a lot more of) demand accountability. Perhaps it has trickled down to even the government, with more people and industries demanding responsibility. Perhaps if capitalism catches on in East/West Africa this will also change in the future?

As far as my project goes, thsi means that research in southern Africa is limited...which I'm happy I know now. Probably would have been better to have known nine months ago, but that's okay. Live and learn.

So what would you do?

Let's say that you happen to be a strapping young lad, perhaps 22 and journeying through Africa for the year. For some unexplicable reason you have an interest in renewable energy, and whenever you go to a new city you tend to immediately find the shops dealing with it and talk to the owner. Let's say you were in a new city yesterday and did this, and the owner told you he was going out to make repairs on a photovoltaic system and invites you to go along.

And so you get there to this house, and immediately find a small system that was used for a television and lights. The family got this system from a US-based church group, and put up 50% of the money (paid over four years) while the church group paid the other half. Because of having this system, their status in the community went up as their house became a place that people visited often to watch television or just talk at night under the lights.

When you look at the system, you immediately notice that the converter (from solar-generated DC power to useful AC power) has been fried. It was obviously overloaded at some point and for some reason this system did not have fuses to prevent excess energy from having the ability to damage the machinery. The converter is very costly, and it's quite obvious this family won't be able to afford it.

However--the owner of the shop has not told the family that it's the converter. Instead he has told them it's multiple other things that they can afford to buy. Let's say you ask him about this, and he tells you he knows it's the converter but he can make more money this way by not telling them.

So. What do you do? Do you tell the family with their limited English ability that the man is cheating them, thus severing a link with a man who can help out your project in the future? Or do you remain complacent so you can continue to learn and work with your main contact in the future, and maybe be able to help change the system a bit which later allows you to help out more people?

Well? I'm waiting.

sitting...and waiting.

For the past three days, I've been waiting to go up to Lira. My main contact up there has been in Kampala, and I have kept being adviced that we are going to 'go soon,' or that he is 'on his way,' only to discover several hours later (after his phone is turned off) that he is 'in a meeting,' and that we'll 'go tomorrow.'

This is a commonplace event here, which really and dramatically impedes research as the entire day is based on the assumption that I'm leaving...and then I don't.

I realized I haven't been updating so much, and I'll rectify that now. In the meantime, I'll just sit, and wait, and realize why doing research in non-African countries is so much faster (although the acess is nowhere near what I get here).

AND THE BIGGEST PROBLEM FACING PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEMS IN BOTSWANA IS:

Theft?

Yeah, theft, of all things, appears to be the biggest problem facing photovoltaic systems in Botswana. I'll oversimplify for the purpose of xanga, but it appears that the past 20 years of rural electrification programs in southern Africa (Nambidia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana, South Africa, Lesotho, and Swaziland) have produced thousands of native people who know a lot about solar panels...including how to steal them.

The telecommunications company that I'm currently working with (that's right, working. One of the guys in my running group is a contractor for, and he lets me go out and get the hands-on experience) has to replace their solar panels at remote mobile phone towers about 6 sites per year. Considering each of these have anywhere from 18-24 panels, costing around $5000, this is a sizeable problem. The panels themselves are put on 6-meter tall steel platforms and are guarded by a local guy: usually an older man who just wants to make the money. The guard is either mysteriously gone or gets beat up before these operations come in, and well-organized teams come in and take them away.

When you go out to rural areas here in Botswana, solar panels actually do abound and are used to power everything from barbershops to car-battery charging areas. There are so many people who know the technology and how to use it, and if they can't get it through state-sponsored subsidies, buying it off of guys offering big discounts is a pretty good option.

Bizarre, eh?