By a Thread

About a month ago I entered the local landline telephone company (Vodafone) offices in Tema to sign up for broadband Internet. It turns out the principles of economics hold true in Ghana just as they do in the US: monopoly companies are no less inefficient here than they are at home (be reminded of the cable company, the phone company, the DMV office, etc...). After a few visits to the office and a cumulative couple hours waiting in "ques" I had finally managed to pay Vodafone 126-cidi (About $90). This covered installation of a phone line ($4), installation of my broadband ($40) - a service that I could have performed since it just meant connecting a modem to the phone line and configuring it through my computer, and the first month of service ($46). Then I waited for the whole installation process to begin. And I waited. And waited. At one point a Vodafone truck pulled up and I excitedly greeted them. They looked at my house and said, "you don't have a phone line." I told them that I knew that and that I had paid $4 at the office to have one installed. They were surprised that the "phone line installer guy" hadn't already been to my house and then they started to leave. I stopped them (with the same urgency Tom Hanks would have stopped a wayward vessel whose captain had realized he was in the wrong place and started to sail away from the deserted island) and begged "can't you call the 'phone line installer guy' and have him come right now?" They told me that they would. Then they left.

A week later I went back to Vodafone's offices, waited in the que, met with an agent, and was told the installer would be to my house the next day - New Years Day. Fortunately the new year arrived. Unfortunately the installer did not. A week later (after getting out of the hospital) I received a call from an installer - he was coming by. I told him I would be here. Three hours later I called him back. He said he was on his way, and then asked me where I lived (?!?!?). Finally he appeared. An hour later I had a phone line entering my house (I didn't even mind that they had installed it by poking a hole in my window screen and feeding it through). Then the "phone line installer guy" started to install the modem. Watching him fumble with my laptop I quickly realized that he did not also hold the title of "broadband installer guy." I offered a few suggestions, he obliged. Then in desperation he called someone on his cell - probably the "broadband installer guy" - and was talked through the procedure. I had internet in my house!!!

Two hours later it stopped working. I figured it was something with the service provider so I waited until the next morning. When it still wasn't working I called customer service. The lady told me there was a system-wide problem and they were working to fix it (hey, the water goes off about once every three days and the power goes out every other week, so why not the Internet too?). The next day I got the same explanation. And the next day. Finally I asked them to explain the problem a bit more. She referred me to tech support.

Tech support told me there had been a break in the undersea cable that connects west Africa to Portugal. (now aka "The Lifeline"), but he told me it had been repaired a day ago! So he talked me through changing some of my settings (the ones set by the "phone line installer guy" while posing as a "broadband installer guy") everything was back on (I wonder how long customer service was going to keep telling me there was a system-wide problem?).

For a week I had beautiful, though slow, broadband (it's 512kbs for those of you who speak techtalk - about half the speed of the slowest broadband you'll find in the US). Then it stopped working again. I waited until the next day and called - not customer service, this time I went straight to tech support. They had a recorded message referring to another undersea cable break and stating that they had a submarine crew working on it. Wow! A submarine crew! Images from The Abyss flashed in my mind. Each day I called and got the same message. Four days later the message was gone and I reached a person. The cable had been fixed. By my service was still off. The agent on the phone looked up my account and said there was nothing she could do, I would have to go to the office. I said okay, and then asked if she could change my email address that they had on file (I noticed on a form that they had typed it incorrectly "Sducate4peace"). She told me I would have to go to the office for that too (I wonder, what can the person on the phone do?).

Once at the office I explained my problem. The woman wasn't sure why my service was off. I told her I wasn't either, and neither was the person on the phone. She said there's another woman in the office whose job it is to investigate such matters, but that she was out this day. I was told to write a letter explaining the problem. She then handed me a blank sheet of computer paper and said, "this is for your letter."
I tried to make it look as official as a hand written letter on a blank sheet of paper can look - I put a date at the top, addressed it "To Whom it May Concern:" and ended with my signature, my printed name, my account number and my contact number. The woman took my letter and seemed very impressed. :-)

I told her I really need my internet though. She said I could pay another $46 and she could activate it (but she can't tell me why it had been deactivated?). So, I grudgingly took out some bills and paid the lady. I asked how long it would take for the service to resume. She said, "oh, it's on right now."
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I am sure some people will interpret this post as being critical or overly-negative. But truthfully I tend to handle these things with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders. I simply wish to illustrate for my American readers the type of day-to-day experiences common to everyone living beyond the "wealthy" world. The real take-away from this is not that I am having a difficult or frustrating time, I am not. Rather, consider the impact that poor infrastructure - including cracked, pothole filled roads; few sources of electricity; aging water lines; and open sewers - has on those who are striving to set up or expand businesses in Ghana and across the region, providing desperately needed jobs to many.
I know that my time here is temporary and in the end, I will return to my country, the United States - to the world of never-ending potable water, perfect roads (yes, perfect - I challenge any American to complain to a Ghanaian about American roads), 24-hour grocery stores, gas stations that pump cheap gas on every corner, and health services unlike anywhere else in the world. However Ghanaians don't have that luxury. This is their country. And they love their country, as they should. They want to see it improve, to join the list of nations that seem to "matter." They work hard, study hard, strive for success, put their family and religious beliefs first, and are unfailingly hospitable and generous with the relatively little that they have. Their optimism and selflessness are an example Americans should learn from. And yet they are, in so many ways, hanging on by a thread.