Umeme

Last week I taught Barnabas and a Peace Corp Volunteer friend how to set up an extra electric (umeme) outlet in their new residence.  Yes that is my friend Kyle who came to visit at the site.  Fortunately his organization he extended with has provided him with a residence in town near their site and he is starting to get to work on some projects with them.  This unfortunately means he will not be joining the FDM site but it is good for him.

So his new residence has one electrical outlet on wall opposite of his bed so he wanted an outlet near his bed.  Most (all affordable) extension cords in town have a short cord typically one meter in length.  We planned to do this work on Sunday because for some Tanzania reason they are shutting off the power in several regions (like shutting off electricity in South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia) every Sunday for the next three months.  They are doing this to install or switch over some electrical equipment (the descriptions get more vague each time they are given).  This way I would not have to worry if the house was straight wired or had a breaker box.

Not sure what I would find I planned for just about every option.  The description made me believe we would need to run wire around most of the room or over the ceiling board if there was an access point.  What I found was a surprise here.  First there was a cut-off switch for the house.  Second all the wiring was run inside the walls which is rare here and more importantly the box was inset in the wall even more rare.  In the dark we could not easily find an access panel above the ceiling board where I could have connected to the line before it entered the wall (hopefully) and then run over to other side of the room.

Working together we decided his original idea of making an extension cord would be much easier and safer than trying to run a new line in the room though the electrical work would be much the same.  I had been afraid the line would be in the way or a tripping hazard when first described to me but after seeing it that was not true because the line would run along the outside wall out of the walking area of the room.

This lead to the one thing every good home improvement story must have-a trip to the hardware store to get the one thing I did not have a male plug adapter to plug into the existing wall outlet.  Ask any regular Do It Yourselfer and they will tell you the trip to the hardware store to get at least one thing not planned on is essential to any project.  It is like a right of passage.  If not something piece of the project then some tool is needed.  If nothing else it helps to talk out your plans and impress others with how much you think you know.

Here it meant going to a local 6 foot by 6 foot hardware store that mostly bare to learn they no longer carried those items.  So then a walk back into the heart of town and ask my favorite hardware guy who sells them and find out the store next to his would have them only he had to go looking for them because he was out.

We finally got the male plug for $1.05 after the exchange rate and headed back.  After that it took about 15 to 20 minutes to make a long extension cord using the wire I had brought and the female outlet along with a wall box to protect the open wires.  Kyle was a quick study and put it all together along with Barnabas.  I left as it would be hours before the power was back on to test it.  Kyle did tell me it worked great after the power to the region was turned back on.

Barnabas also did well using the multimeter to verify power was off at the house since I had shown him how to use it doing solar power.