we've been quite busy the last several weeks, and yesterday i thought we were going to have our first day of kicking back and relaxing that we'd had in quite some time. . .instead i spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to tackle our electricity problem. if you're up for a lengthy not-so-exciting story about what a long, frustrating day can look like in cambodia, keep reading.
about 9 am our electricity went out. not too strange of a thing here in cambodia. especially during the hot season, the government will shut down power in different sectors of the city in order to conserve energy - completely unannounced of course. the good news is that it is usually only off for a couple hours.
after a couple hours had passed this time, our electricity was still off BUT i noticed that all our neighbors were watching TV. let me insert what i find to be a quick interesting fact about Phnom Penh. . .along each street there's at least one centralized electric pole, open and accessible to all the world, containing breakers which shut off electricity to each individual house along the street. anybody can open up the plastic cover and turn them on and off whenever they please. so when i went to check ours, it was turned off. at first i thought it was one of the neighborhood kids pulling a prank so i flipped it back on. still no electricty. then i noticed a note attached to the electric pole from the electric company. i called the electric company to find out that they had cut off power to our house for not paying our bill on time. i completely support the idea of cutting usage off to customers who don't pay their bills, but in this case they decided to forgo delivering the bill to us and jump straight to the resulting penalties. typically they hand deliver all the bills to customers, but this last month we hadn't received anything from them yet.
after clearly explaining my case on the phone, an hour passed and two guys showed up at our house from the electric company. they explained the situation a little further and told me that if i paid my bill they'd turn the electricity back on. so, i went into the house to get the money i owed while they worked outside reconnecting things for us. Then, when i tried to give them the money for my bill, they said that i needed to pay an additional reconnection fee as a fine for not paying our bill on time. having done nothing wrong, i refused to pay the $15 fine. they further explained that if i didn't pay it, they'd have to turn the electricity back off until i can produce evidence that i've paid the fine and our bill in full.
my suspicions are always raised anytime somebody starts talking about fees and fines in cambodia, but they were heightened when these men produced no paperwork for me and without clearly stating it, the fine seemed to be fluctuating in price. however, they had me in a bit of a bind. there was no chance i was going to get somebody to come out over the weekend, and i wasn't sure if i had time to get to the electric company's office, pay the bill, and get somebody back to our house to turn the electricity back on before they stopped working at 4:00.
after debating paying the "fine" and getting things over with quickly, i finally decided to take my chances, fight corruption, and plead my case at the office. i drove 30 minutes across town, waited to plead my case, and then was instructed that i needed to go to the other office about 40 minutes from that one! i drove back to the other side of the city and finally got to the correct office as friday closing time continued to draw nearer. they very cordially assisted me in paying my bill but only offered me a slight chuckle when i mentioned the "reconnection fine" i was supposed to pay. they sent me on my way and said that our electricity would be restored that evening.
4:00 came and went. nobody had showed up. i now knew it was hopeless to try and contact anybody with the electric company. i walked back out to the electrical pole in the street to stare at it one more time in hopeless desperation. i knew it wouldn't help, but i went ahead and flipped our public breaker back on and walked back in the house. as i walked in, i was both excited and infuriated. excited to find our electricity back on, but infuriated when i realized that the two guys that came to our house had completely taken us! first of all, they tried to charge us a fine that didn't really exist. and then, when they told us they'd have to cut the electricity off until we paid it, all they did was walk back out to the street and flip our breaker off!!
if you've read this through all the way to the end, thanks for bearing with me. basically i spent an entire day simply trying to get the electricity back on in our house because some electric employee company workers saw an opportunity to make some quick, easy bucks! basically, and if you ever hear somebody make a comment about how everything takes more time and energy to do something living overseas, this is the kind of situation they may be referring to. the sad thing is how many other nearly identical stories we walk through on a daily basis that we don't take the time or effort to ever mention. of course these things are always a distraction to the work we most want to be involved in here, but have become-dare i say -an affectionately accepted way of life.
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