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 THE POWER OF POWER Life in Africa’s Christina Jordan describes the nightmare of moving her computer facilities to a neighbouring building. The difficulties she encountered may well strike a chord with others and help illustrate that closing the digital divide is more than just providing access to computers. The telecomms infrastructure may be improving but the power system lags dangerously behind. In the "old days" just 3 weeks ago, when we finished interviewing clients we’d close the office and climb up the hill to the Life in Africa computer room at my home. It was an awkward arrangement - inefficient, and a hassle for the volunteers. They weren’t able to get as much exposure to the internet as they wanted to, and with rarely enough hands on deck to get all the work done, I spent countless sleepless nights pulling up the slack. In January, just as a new volunteer training class began, the other tenants in the building we were sharing announced that they would leave. Though it would mean an increase in rent that we could hardly imagine being able to afford, it was also a golden opportunity to merge LiA’s loan program and internet activities into a single, smooth running operation. The volunteers would get more training and experience on the internet; the clients would benefit from an increased presence of loan program staff; and I would benefit from more human resources to help manage LifeInAfrica.com. In short, it HAD to be done. So once we raised the funds, it should have been simply a question of unplugging the computers and plugging them back in at the new location, right? WRONG! First, we had to provide our computers with a secured environment. Not only would it be unwise to leave the computers unsecured during off-hours, but no insurance company would talk to us without certain minimum security measures in place. One of our clients had recently received a loan to start offering iron bars on windows as part of his contracting business. We became his first customer when we asked him to completely cage off one of our new rooms. Though a few of the bars are not *quite as straight as they would be with more practice, he did a fine job. The security issue still wasn’t solved, however. The prices for commercial security services are way out of our reach, so we hired a "local-local" night watchman who guards the place with a bow and arrow. The guardhouse we’ve had built will keep him dry when it rains, and the new papyrus fence will keep people from passing by the windows and seeing the computers inside. Next, we had to completely rewire the building for electricity. There was no earthing, and the poor quality wires were probably 20 years old. In what would be the computer room, there was only one plug, and connecting through it used to send a few sparks flying. Now we have 5 plugs in that room - complete with earthing! - and the lights in each of the other rooms actually work too. One of the common problems with the power supply in Uganda is voltage peaks. When the voltage level gets too high it can destroy a motherboard, so we decided to install a voltage switcher on our main electricity switch. With this contraption, whenever the voltage goes above a certain level, the power to the whole building simply switches off. With this, plus our UPS (uninterrupted power supply) units to ensure that our computers could still be shut down properly if the power went off, we thought we were set. The last major task was to move the wireless equipment that connects our computers to the internet via a satellite link. This technology consists of a small transmitter connected on one side to our computer network, and on the other side to a dish-like antenna on top of the building. The antenna sends and receives signals through a tower it points to on top of a nearby hill, providing 24 hour internet access to all of our computers, without a modem or a dial-up connection of any kind. It’s a brilliant invention which is used in many Kampala offices, since it’s much cheaper and more reliable than a dial-up connection (local phone calls are NOT free!) Just one small problem... somewhere between our new office and the tower on the hill, there is a huge mango tree which kept blocking part of the signal! After all that investment in security and electricity, the location of the new LiA computer center was fundamentally flawed. Okay - calm down, take some deep breaths... After hours of turning the antenna this way and that, the technicians finally got it working. The signal still isn’t quite perfect - it fades in and out if the wind blows that darned tree the wrong way. But with a little patience, it works. Whew! Moving day! Finally! After the last clients left, 7 of us headed up the hill to pack up and move. We didn’t get all set up that first day, but did manage to unpack the computers and set them where they were supposed to be. What an impressive site! It was very exciting. After a small celebration with the gang to toast to the changing face of LiA, I returned home and actually went to bed before midnight for a change. It was a good thing, too, since the next couple of days required every ounce of energy I could muster to maintain my cool. Remember that power switcher thing? Well... for more than half of the first day and ALL of the second day, the voltage was coming in consistently at dangerous levels. Which meant no power. None. At all. So... on to Plan B. We removed the voltage switcher and bought voltage stabilizers instead. Much more expensive (budget? what budget?), but obviously necessary. The stabilizers also switch off automatically if the voltage gets too high, but not before trying to bring it down to a normal level. With those units installed, we thought we could finally begin to get our machines set back up. Nope. During a rainstorm the next day, the power went off. It came back on within half an hour for our neighbors on both sides, but we were powerless yet again. Around 5pm an electrician (another LiA client) stopped by and found the problem: our central electrical connection is not through a fuse box but through a single ancient switch, which was no longer gripping as it should. Seeing our misery, he tightened it up free of charge, and even showed us how to wiggle it gently if the problem occurs again. Yippee! It was now Friday night, and we could FINALLY get back to work. Believe it or not, IN ADDITION to all of this nightmare, we also had a major computer crash. The crash occurred 2 days before we moved the internet connection, and that computer (which was also the network server, and is still under warranty, thank goodness) is now in South Africa for repairs. We had dreamed of buying an additional computer, but didn’t have the funds... necessity intervened, and now we’ve had to buy one whether we had the money or not. Losing all of our email contacts was a terrible setback, and our budget is now in a terrible state. Actually, though, I was surprised to see how much the prices on new computers in Uganda have fallen over the past year. We bought a 733 MHZ Pentium III with 124 MB of RAM for under $1200 - which is hundreds less than we paid for a less powerful, less sophisticated machine just one year ago. In fact, throughout this whole saga, I have repeatedly been struck by the advanced telecommunications equipment available here in Uganda. During the move, our driveway at home was torn up because they are laying fiber-optic cables on our street. Our wireless internet connection is clearly far more sophisticated than any dial-up connection anywhere. We didn’t even think of installing phone lines in the office - the cellular phone network has expanded to include almost the entire country in just 2 short years, and cell phones are cheaper in Uganda right now than they are in Europe. Juxtapose this against the power infrastructure, and it’s quite mind boggling, really. At the end of the day, though, in spite of all this technology, it’s power that still has the real power! Without electricity, our wireless connection doesn’t work, our computers go down, and we are left with only our cell phones to communicate with... there is talk that the leading cellular company will also be providing cellular internet access through their network very soon. Sounds promising, but could it completely bypass the power grid? Short of buying a generator, and replacing the ancient switch with a new fuse box, we’ve done about all that we can right now to ensure a stable power supply to the new LiA computer center. So far, so good. We’ve been without electricity for only about 45 minutes so far this week. Wiggling the switch didn’t help on that occasion - it was a general power failure, for which patience was the only solution. Luckily, I really am getting more sleep now that the workroom has moved out of my home, so my patience is in more ready supply :)After more than 10 days offline, however, I am eager to rebuild everything we lost in the crash and FINALLY get back to work! If you’d like to see what our new office looks like (including the wireless equipment AND the ancient power switch) take a peek right here: http://LifeInAfrica.com/about_LiA/office.htm (source: © 2000, The Life in Africa Foundation)
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This page last updated on January 28 2004.
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