A little cloudy on the solar panels

This week I have been joined in the Lusaka office by Hawa and Gaby from the UK office, as well as Jane who assists Hawa in the training program. Gaby is here for an audit. Personally, I spent another two days in the Lusaka office assisting and training the office staff. I also met with three suppliers to get quotes for the new office network installation. I was reminded by the second supplier, Netcom that we will need phones. Yes…good thought, I told myself. So already Netcon has won my approval as they saved us from the issue of forgetting to install phones into the new office space.

I was asked to investigate a few problems that were experienced with the new solar panels and batteries for the T1 computers. The larger solar panels seem impractical for the resource centers we have out in the field. The smaller solar panels have a very thin cable that is temperamental and might need vamping up. The batteries it seems can only be either charged or used to run the computers, but cannot both be charged and be used for the computers simultaneously. This seems very impractical as the girls will use the computers during the day (normal office hours), but the only time the batteries can be recharged with the solar panels is during the day. This poses a practical conflict.

Tonight Hawa and Gaby treated Jane and I to a wonderful dinner at a beautiful Indian restaurant called the Taj. It is inside a 5-star hotel and was up to that standard. We had a great time eating, discussing and enjoying the sounds of a great “kitsch” African band that was playing some traditional African music as well as tunes from artists such as Doris Day, Sinatra, Clapton, and even a song from the movie the Godfather. Very entertaining evening accompanied by some really nice South African wine.