Bring on the Sun

We have Solar Power!!

Tanzanian electricity, or luku in Swahili, is pay-as-you-go involving a little luku box to access your account, a telephone to access your funds, and entering a whole series of numbers to connect the two. The amount of luku time you get depends on the amount of funds you commit. And, of course, whether things get changed by an outage of an hour, or a day, or maybe even three days.

But - as of this August - Tloma Primary School has solar power!!

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  From the roof of a van..

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  to the roof of a building...

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  and the addition of equipment and storage batteries.

Voila! It's solar power!!!

As many of you know, we have been working toward this addition for over two years. Our original hopes were that solar would not only generate power for lights and other general operations, but also provide power for cooking school porridge and lunch. Unfortunately, the cooking issue has proven to be massively problematic. Discussions with the school led to the decision to set aside the cooking solution for now and move ahead with solar for increasing typical power needs.

This decision coincided with the recent gift of a wifi router from the Grand Circle Foundation. Now students can watch online educational videos to supplement the limited available textbooks. Teachers can provide classroom papers without dipping into their personal accounts to buy electricity for printers. Security night lights will not drain the coffers of limited school funds. Teachers can teach more effectively, and students will be better educated.

I am so grateful for the awesome support we've received from the Power Providers solar company, the donors, and most especially a small team of volunteers who have provided informed guidance about what was needed. This is definitely a gift that will keep on giving! Our massive thanks to you all!!

Winona