I rolled into the green, rolling highlands of interior Tanzania with two suitcases of computers and a mission to put them to use. The founder of the school at which I arrived had been telling me that electricity was always being worked on, but costs, government bureaucracy and favoritism, and the logistics of getting the poles erected and the wires run along the sloppy, dirt roads were factors inhibiting this process continually.

Our local member of Tanzanian parliament was our best chance of getting electricity. Not only was he our region’s representative, but he was a senior member and appointed as the nation’s financial minister. So weeks before I set off for Tanzania in January of 2014, the school administration and I discussed how to contact him for a meeting and a plea for power–that we’d be getting a new computer lab up and running.

But the man died in December.

A vacant seat in parliament was the impetus for taking the matter into our own hands. From the void of government provision, private companies had been offering their services throughout the country to communities able to pay for getting hooked up.

It so happened that my lone Western colleague at the school, Leah from Colorado, was dating a Tanzanian man whose friend, Malugu, worked for Tanzania’s government-operated utility provider, Tanesco. And he knew a man working for one of these private power-suppliers. I got in touch with Malugu’s friend, George, who happened to be coming to our region on other business in February. And on Valentine’s Day, he arrived in his head-turning truck.

He surveyed the school grounds, spoke to school leaders, and then drove a group of us out to the nearest village on the grid to calculate costs of extending the line. The extension would be 8.2 kilometers according to his odometer. And according to his quick math, this would require about 100 electric poles. He promised a quote in the coming days. He sent it, and it was an eyebrow-raising $257,000. In no way could we expect to raise that much money. But taking the action of having the company come out and offer a quote did allow us some fodder for reaching out elsewhere for help.

The US president had recently visited Tanzania–even had “Barack Obama Avenue” along the Indian Ocean coast of Dar es Salaam named in his honor. Obama pledged a bunch of money in an effort called Power Africa to help connect rural villages in the country. Ours seemed a great candidate. I visited the website for US Aid and their Power Africa page to see pictures of engineers working with local villagers, all with smiles on their faces as Africa was getting jump-started into the 21st century. I emailed them. I also discovered and emailed the head of the Rural Energy Agency (REA) of Tanzania, whose mission was evident by their name and who were in charge of distributing the funding from Power Africa.

But from both places, I got nothing back.

And the next six months seemed a desert of progress with the occasional mirage of hope. After my third email, the REA director responded saying to give him time to look into it. But subsequent emails to him in the coming months would go unanswered–even though I was to be in Dar es Salaam (where they are headquartered) in April. But the opportunity to see them was missed.

I also happened to meet another member of parliament at the internet cafe in Iringa one Saturday. She was the representative of the adjacent district and upon meeting her, I told her why I was there, showed her pictures of our lab, and then was even able to introduce her to our school headmaster who happened to be at the print shop next door. She asked us to get in touch with her about her visiting the school, seeing the lab with her own eyes, and then going back to the halls of parliament to make the case for our school.

With optimism, I followed up our introduction with a thought-out email, thanking her for her time, interest, and an invitation to come see our school. The timing was perfect. Our founder was coming to vising in the coming weeks. But I heard nothing back–nor would I after further attempts.

One last gasp for electricity came in the form of an unexpected trip I was going to take back to Dar es Salaam in August. I was to meet another volunteer arriving at the airport. So I sent out another round of emails to the parties in that city: REA, a Chinese company who had donated to our school previously, and another non-profit helping schools with solar power that I was put in touch with. Of the three, the one that responded was the one I considered the least likely–the Rural Energy Agency. The director wrote back saying he would meet.

I got to Dar August 12th. On the 13th, I prepared the quote from the private company, which he requested, and a Powerpoint presentation of our school and village’s need for electrical power. First I had to get to the their offices. The motorcycle driver in Dar was daring.

In one piece, I entered the modern office tower of echoing tiled floor. I needed to go through the security guy with metal-detecting wand and then empty my pockets and open my bag.

I went upstairs where I signed in at the REA’s front desk. And a few minutes later, I went into the engineer director’s classroom-sized office. The business-casually dressed, stocky middle-aged man offered an upbeat and friendly welcome, but it also came with the words that lunch was waiting. So sitting with him at his round table with his secretary, I went right into who I was and why I was there. In seconds, he interrupted me to say, “Yes, okay” with a sudden recollection. “Your representative was the former finance officer.”

“Yes,” I responded.

I continued with my Powerpoint presentation highlighting our need for electricity for our computers. He stuttered a chuckle that we have a lab without electricity. Then he interrupted me again, this time to explain what I need to do.

“You’ll need to contact Engineer Andrew. He is the REA engineer placed in that district. Tell him you stopped by and talked to me.”

“That’s it?” I wondered.

“We’re laying a 33kv line there.” he continued.

I said “okay” with a little confusion at the sudden instruction and lingo.

He got up and came back with a map, showing me where the new lines were going. He brought over from his paper-ridden desk a sheet upon which was a project list. Maguliwa was listed as third.

I was supposed to call his representative engineer for the district and stay on him to see the project done.

That was all.

He had to run. So I did, too.

Two days later when I was back to Iringa, I called Engineer Andrew as the director had instructed–once by myself and once with the school headmaster and I trading talk time. The engineer was receptive to the calls, laying out the plan and schedule of how Magulilwa would be getting electricity. The headmaster hung up excited that this might be the real deal this time and thanked me for my help. The engineer came out to survey when promised. Next was the waiting game–a game that had been played by the heads of the school for a few years, if not longer.

But on Wednesday, August 27th, right in the middle of a slow afternoon at the quiet village school, I heard loud noises coming from outside our teacher housing brick complex. Thuds and knocks and diesel engine blubbering. I looked out my window toward the road and saw this:

Then I went outside and saw this:

Here’s video of the delivery:

It’s possible my visit to the REA offices simply coincided with plans already in the works. At the same time, people there tend to take things more serious if there are foreigners involved. So it’s also possible that my visit and calls helped grease the wheels–all the way to rolling the logs to the village and then off the backs of the semi trailers.

As of now, electricity is said to available by the end of 2014. Last I heard, the poles had been stuck into ground, and the next step was to run the power lines. But whether by December or January or March, Magulilwa and our school will have power.

***

We humans love stories. We like to partition our lives into chapters. I’m no exception. Seeing the polls rolling off the truck felt like an appropriate finale to my time at the school–and my time in Africa. It provided a nice sendoff, an accomplishment years in the works, but also a milestone that offers so much more than the reflection of efforts made to see it happen. It was a fitting end in the ways that movies powerfully end: by offering a new beginning, an extension of experiences to look ahead to, new adventures, new opportunities, new life.

Two weeks after the poles arrived, I’d begin my journey out of Africa. But like an ending that is just a beginning, so is the start of next week’s posts that take us all around the beauty and wonder of East Africa.