Zimbabwe Absurdity

Farming in Zimbabwe is pretty challenging but Zimbabweans are adept (some would say notorious) at “making a plan”. Let me give you an example.

That circled object in the photo above is a LED light mounted on the railing outside my office. It was temporary you must understand; a necessity of circumstance, the best I can do at that moment to provide some security lighting.

Last Tuesday (10 days ago at the time of writing) the electricity cables that supply my business and several properties in the area were stolen. I was getting into the shower as the power went off – I don’t live at my work but the house is on the same grid. It was 10.30 p.m. Of course I didn’t know at the time the cause of the power cut but the next day I received a SMS from the foreman saying the lines had been cut. I thought he meant broken as when a tree falls across a power line as it had been windy. No, he really did mean cut. I had a look when I got to work and was surprised to see the wire cables were made of copper. They were certainly old – all the line I’ve ever seen have been an aluminium alloy. There is a strong demand for scrap copper and once it’s been melted down there is little chance of being caught.

ZESA, the electricity supply utility, came and had a look and by the next day was on the job. I chatted to the foreman on the way out and he said not to worry, they’d have us back on-line that evening. I asked if they were going to replace the other copper line before it was also stolen. No, they weren’t. But he did think the thieves would be back for the rest. Apparently he found this funny. I thought I’d better look into buying a heavier duty generator as the one we had was only for standby situations and not suitable for long periods of use. I asked him how they’d stolen the live cable without getting electrocuted. Must have  been experts he opined. I didn’t add that I thought they were probably ZESA employees or certainly had been.

On Thursday I bought an 11kVA generator, big enough to run all the essential equipment; 3 borehole pumps, 2 irrigation pumps and security lights. It cost $5750 and is a prime power generator meaning it can be run continuously if necessary. There was not a huge choice in the range that I could afford and as I couldn’t wait for the bank transfer to go through I paid a cash deposit and the generator was delivered “first thing” on Friday which turned out to be 2 p.m. Power came back that evening as did the thieves and another 400m of cable was stolen. By Tuesday morning the generator already needed its first service – it had clocked up just over 50 hours and paid for itself. Seedlings really cannot run out of water.

On Monday it was evident that one of the borehole pumps was not running properly. I had changed it on Thursday from a 3 phase to single phase motor, so it could run on the old generator, and the control box was tripping the power supply off. Pumps use more power when pumping more water so once the pipe was full it would draw less and settle down. The pipe (all 400m or more of it) should have been staying full but it seemed that none of the non-return valves that should have prevented the back flow were working. So my landlord set about replacing them.

I engaged the services of an electrician to install the change-over switches to allow us to switch between the generator supply and the ZESA mains supply. Normally I would have tackled this as it’s well within my understanding of electrical wiring but he was in the area so I thought I’d take the easier route. It was just as well that I didn’t feel like doing it as he spotted a major problem in the switch box that would have ruined the generator. The generator ran all weekend while we set about trying to solve why the one borehole kept switching off. By Monday I’d had enough and went to the irrigation supplier who told me that it was a voltage problem. My thought was that it was just too sophisticated for Zimbabwean conditions so I bought a basic one that just ran the pump with no power checking. A risk but I was fed up with the tinkering.

Tuesday and the linemen were back again and working quickly they were finished by Wednesday evening. I have an important (politically speaking) neighbour who could not possibly be inconvenienced. That morning I’d been to the local ZESA office to see what I could do about getting the transformer connected and was fully prepared to pay an “incentive”. I was brushed off with “we will get to you”. The next morning they were working on the transformer but it was not by my efforts. My landlord’s son had made contact with the “correct” person and paid him $100. The next day we were finally back on the grid and the generator could take a rest having used some 200 litres of diesel. One phase was not working but we’d become adept at moving wires on the switchboard to deal with that sort of inconvenience.

It had taken 10 days to get the power back and I’d learned a lot more than I’d ever intended to about electrical wiring. I’d only got one shock and no equipment had burned out. One has to be adaptable to farm in Zimbabwe.