Our Power Journey

During my first return to Tloma almost exactly eight years ago I was woken up by the nearby sound of chainsaws and male voices.  A quick investigation revealed a small group of men clearing bushes and anchoring poles behind my house.  At the school I learned power lines were being extended to bring luku – electricity - to the community’s Lutheran Church.  They had been waiting over four years for this to happen, not an unusual time period for things in Tanzania.

That Lutheran Church sat adjacent to Tloma Primary, just across the dirt road from the school’s large soccer field, a distance of perhaps only eight to ten power poles away. So close.  Maybe close enough to bring a line to the school, even if only enough to power one room so that teachers could charge their phones and the school’s one laptop. 

We started asking questions and learned the cost to extend the line would be about $1500.  I reached out to our good friends and safari traveling companions, the Alders, to see if they would like to join me in making that happen. They generously agreed and we contacted the power company. That’s when we got the exciting news that the government would extend the lines for free to a rural school with pre-wired buildings.  The $1500 was quickly repurposed to place three lightbulbs and one electric socket in each of the school’s 14 rooms. 

Channels were chipped into the plaster walls, wiring placed, walls replastered and painted, and the school was electrified, both physically and emotionally. It was a happy day!

School classes are officially dismissed in Tloma for a month each summer except, unofficially, for grades 4, 6, and 7.  Those students and several teachers still show up each day to study and prepare for the all-important annual exams. Results from those tests determine whether a student gets to advance to grade 5 or to secondary school. I learned that the headmaster had to travel 20 km to another school to get the best price to print stacks of those multi-paged, legal-sized, practice tests for over 200 students.   It was still expensive and took an entire day to achieve.

One day towards the end of the week, the school had another group of visitors.  They wanted to help the school and asked me what the students needed.  There were so many options that I was a bit stymied, and the rather presumptive answer that popped out surprised even me.  “I know what the teachers would like and that’s a printer”.  Imagine our delight when early the next week a commercial printer, boxes of paper, and a generous supply of ink cartridges were delivered to the school.  I can’t express what a powerful gift that was for the teaching staff. But, having a printer and access to luku is not the same as being able to print when needed. Tanzania’s power grid is still greatly undeveloped and often undependable.  It is not unusual to have multiple power outages during a day.  Sometimes they last for a few minutes; sometimes a few days.  It is also relatively expensive and is pay-as-you-go.

Government schools do not receive adequate funding to support electrical needs, and Tloma teachers often had to decide whether they were willing to use scarce personal funds to print the documents they wanted for their classes.  Despite these challenges, teachers have taken whatever opportunities they could to enhance their students’ learning, including paying the luku price to power a donated projector and laptop to show occasional YouTube educational videos.  

The recent installation of solar power will greatly relieve some of the financial pressure at Tloma and increase the educational opportunities for its students. In anticipation of this event, teachers have been researching digital resources to include in their lesson plans. And they will no longer need to consult their pocketbooks to determine whether they can show a video or recharge their phones.

Winona