It's Up, It's Down

What comes up, must go down. That pretty well sums up the internet, phone and electric service here in Jinja. It has been almost two weeks since I've been able to connect to the internet.

When the internet is down you have to call your provider. For us, that's the phone company. Problem is the phone is the same line as the internet. If the net is down usually the phone is down too. Aha! You think to yourself, I'll use my cell phone to call the phone company. A seemingly good idea but there is one major hitch. Since cell phone providers are stealing all of the phone company's customers the phone company has decided that they won't take service calls from cell phones. Kind of a payback thing, I guess. So you call but they don't answer! Now you have to drive down and talk to them in person (or have your lovely wife do that, thanks sweetie).

When the phone/internet guy finally arrives after 3 days he checks out the situation with great patience and skill and he determines that you need a new wire to run fron the pole to your house. "Great", you say. "Wire that baby up." That is when you get the sad news that the phone company has no phone wire. "When will you get some?" you eagerly ask. "Next week...maybe."

So next week or later finally comes and you get the wire and the phone and internet are back. You're in business... except now the electric lines are down. You wait another day until the repairman can come to fix them. Which he does. Hurray! now you can finally communicate with the outside world. Except, in your house, there is still no power. The electric guy has forgotten to put the fuse back in the transformer for your house! So you call him up on his cell phone (no rules about phones for the electric company) and he says he will be right there. An hour later he arrives in the dark to put in the fuse on the pole. Simple job so you leave him to do it.

About five minutes later you start to wonder why the power hasn't come on. Then you hear a comotion outside. The dog has bitten the power guy! "What?" "Your dog has attacked me!" Hard to believe since this is the same dog that slept as thieves stole the bike rack with two bikes attached last month. So you promise the power guy that the dog is not rabid and he calms down then finishes putting the fuse back. Finally you get to check your email but before you can sit the phone rings. It is the hospital informing you that the power guy is getting rabies injections. So off to the hospital you go with your dog's vaccination record and a wad of cash as rabies vaccine is expensive. Two hours later you return home too tired to check email. It will wait until tomorrow. Except for the thunderstorm that blows the fuses in your equipment overnight.

It's up it's down but it's the only game in town. And people wonder why I never write...