It’s been nearly 2 weeks that we’ve been here now. And from day 1 I’ve been trying to get utilities going. But I’m finding that my attitude is steadily deteriorating as I run into trouble trying to get things setup. For my own sanity, I thought I’d make this blog an outlet for my pain.
Here are my three areas of frustration… which i will detail so you can laugh along with me:
Phone
As this was initially disconnected, I had to drive around the city in search of a phone office that would be able to fix my problem and not just receive payments. After 3 days, and many hours of driving, I managed to get it up and working on the 2nd. And it actually worked for a while. Alas, by yesterday the phone was completely cut off. No dial tone – nothing.
Here we go again.
Internet
Since the only reliable internet access here is via DSL, the phone connection is somewhat necessary. In the brief 2 day period that we had a working phone line, I attempted to call the ISP’s tech line to get things working. One customer rep said that the DSL access was already active. Another told me it was pending. Then another said it was fine and working normally. But getting help configuring my DSL modem was like pulling teeth – and then the next 5 calls to tech support got cut off.
In the end it doesn’t matter, I guess. As the phone line is now dead I am back at step one.
TV
Since we are otherwise cut off from the world we thought TV access might be beneficial. There is a satellite receiver here at the house we’re staying in, so, theoretically, all we have to do is prepay to get it to work. I spent 4 hours driving to 8 shops (many who advertised their affiliation to this service), yet none of them could or would help me prepay the bill.
Finally, my neighbor, a young Muslim guy, took me to the market to prepay the bill. Did that. And yet the next day we are still without any satellite access. Ugh.
So, 12 days here and still no phone, no internet access, and no TV.