Playing Electrician and Other Highlights

Jan 28th, 2009 – Yesterday I finally decided to play electrician again and see if I could not get one of the plugs working in our house. I had looked into this shortly after we had arrived, but when I saw the neat tangle of wires in the main electrical box in the house, I decided to pass on it and save myself an electrifying experience with the 220 volts they use here. If you look closely you can see it is also home to a brown nest for some insects.

This second picture shows that the outside is no better than the inside. This is the outside connection box that connects the house to the underground wiring that goes throughout the compound. Underground is a relative term as I have spotted a few wires, such as the yellow and green one leaving the box, exposed along the way to the main church. Most of the wiring appears to be run inside metal pipes from what I can tell, and these are not always underground. In some spots, particularly around the road where erosion has occurred, these pipes are exposed and bent. So underground means probably less than a foot.

But yesterday I decided to try again as I’m getting tired of doing all the charging of our electric contraptions in the dinner room area. Since this is a more public and accessible area we have to stay and watch the items so they don’t grow legs and walk off. I started by looking at the plug receptacle. It seemed okay, but a couple of loose wires I tightened. The second one I left alone after seeing that it looked like it was not connected at all and the wires were just all patched together in it’s box.

This did not fix it so I moved back the spaghetti in the box in the house. This time I explored a little more and found that there is actually a couple of fuses mounted with the main power switch. One indeed was blown I found with a little experimenting with the overhead lights and swapping the fuses back and forth. Using the good one in place of the bad one actually allowed the socket to work. Score I thought, all I need to do is repair the fuse. You don’t replace these fuses as all they are is a thin wire strung between 2 contacts on the fuse and held in place with a couple of screws. Knowing a little about power, I knew I needed to use a wire about the same size so that it would continue to be the weak link and blow first before the plug or device plugged into it went up in smoke. So off to town to look for small wire. It took a few stops and asking a couple questions of locals, but I finally found a electrical repair “shop” that had wire that looked and felt about right. Back home, screw in the fuse wire and plug it in – and it worked! I’m in business and happy.

I plug a couple batteries in to charge and take off. Later in the day I notice the charger is not on. Great, what’s wrong? I play with the fuses a little and it appears that one of them was just a little loose. I re-seat it and all is good.

Overnight I have nothing charging but plug in batteries again this morning. Nothing’s happening, the charger is not charging. Back the fuses and the one for the socket is blown and has a pretty good black spot on it. Not a good sign. This doesn’t daunt me much as I’m a pro now. I have more wire and quickly re-wire the fuse and plug it in. I flip the main power switch and hear a pop and see smoke rising from the fuse. Definitely a bad sign. I stopped playing electrician at this point as it rained heavily last night and there was a puddle of water on the floor not to far from the electrical box. Knowing that the roof leaks, I figure the wires are shorted who knows where and it’ll to a continuous battle now that the rains seem to have come.

How do I know that the roof leaks you probably asked yourself? Well a couple nights ago when we had the biggest rain we’ve seen here since we arrived, I was laying in bed when a pretty big splat hit me right on the belly. Of course the first one I considered an anomaly and went on reading my book. After the fifth one or so I decided it wasn’t going to be a rare occurrence and arranged a plastic trash sack and a couple of wash cloths to stop and soak up whatever fell from the ceiling. This has worked pretty well the last two nights. I’m just hoping the rains don’t come any harder because for now the wash clothes dry our between storms and are ready to soak up more water when the next storm hits.

Here is the aftermath of the fly storm. Hand prints courtesy of Travis. He said it was pretty gross, but not so gross that it kept him from ding it a second time. The flies left almost as fast as they come. Here one evening and gone the next morning. It least mostly gone. A few stragglers and apparently the ones in our bathing room didn’t get the message to leave at all and stayed in force. All that is left behind is a few million dead and rotting fly carcasses. This much decomposing fly flesh actually has a bit of stench to it which is worse in some places then others, such as walking into the dinning room.

The sound of a gecko falling from the ceiling onto a concrete floor is much like the sound of a large drop of rain hitting the floor.

We all are growing restless.

Out of time for now, more soon I hope.
Paul