Electricity & Intl Aid: More Ranting than Rambling

In the states, we have large, systematic bureaucracies that provide infrastructure for our society; the government, businesses, and organizations all operate within a bureaucratic web. While there are great inefficiencies and inconsistencies in our system, I am quite thankful for how automated some things have become, especially electricity...

In Mazar, we have city power approximately half of each day. During the other half of the day, we either choose to run a gas-guzzling generator or go without power. Going without isn't too bad, except that the windows are covered with blankets to keep heat in, which leaves us with flashlights to accomplish everyday household tasks like washing dishes, cooking, and reading. When we wake up in the morning, we use flashlights to get the coffee going on our wonderful gas stove. In some ways, it feels like a hobbit house-- dark, kinda cold, but also cozy.

Some of the more frustrating parts of dealing with the lack of electricity include:

• delays at work for lack of a decent, economical power source to run the machines at the factory
• the inability to wash clothes without steady power for a few hours
• having to pump water into a tank on our roof every day so as to not be in the middle of a shower when it runs out 
• having to keep track of whether the hot water heater was on long enough to last through your shower
• and tripping over everything in the dark to find a flashlight when you're in the middle of something and everything blacks out

Another interesting thing about electricity here is the way you pay. In the states, our bill is mailed to our house, and we either mail a check in or have it automatically withdrawn from our account. Here, you register with the power company and they give you a bill. You pay it at the company, but keep the latest bill until the next one is due. When the Qalandhar (a neighborhood "leader" of sorts) asks you to pay (about every two months), you are suppose to take your old bill to the company to obtain your new bill and make a payment. If you don't have the old bill, they charge triple or more the amount owed on the bill. I try to be culturally sensitive and understanding, but why the heck is it this complicated to pay an electric bill?! I guess that's the result when there isn't an established postal system.

Oh, and almost all of the generators are Chinese, which means they fall apart every couple of weeks. You can buy Japanese brands that have greater longevity, but when they break, nobody knows how to fix them.

Beyond the local issues we have with power, its frustrating to see American tax dollars and donated money go to waste. Our factory is located in an industrial park that was built by the USAID. Basically, they decided to build an "industrial park" 15 km from Mazar with the intention of having potable water and 24/7 electricity later. They built the park--spending millions of dollars--with the "hope" that a large power line would be completed between Uzbekistan and Mazar. I'm not sure where they were hoping to get water pumped from; I guess the plan was to have it trucked in every week (completely unsustainable...).What this has amounted to is a failed project, though they wouldn't admit this because they checked off all of their boxes. Idealism killed the project. They created contracts and completed a project based on an idealistic premise that the electricity would be completed. Now that the premise has fallen through, the project is worthless to anyone who purchased property within the industrial park.

I guess that's enough ranting for now...