Electrogaz Sucks - Boo Hiss

Electrogaz

Judging by this title, what do you think this post is about? ;)

Wednesday night was fun. I finished at the office and went to VSO to try to print my IT report out. Bumped into Cathryn and she invited me over to Martine’s again as she was staying the night. We went to Panorama and had a great night bar one very strange, slightly drunk man who wandered up to us and started slurring how good it was to see white people able to go out in public without the protection of black friends, and how far the country had come since 1994 that we should feel so safe. He tried to invite himself to sit down, but we quickly got rid of him. Strange that, in pointing out how safe we must feel, he was making us feel unsafe. Just a drunk prat.

Cathryn's had the week from hell and is on official R&R with a mission to regain basic sanity. It began with someone stealing a load of money from her house, then getting a whack load of racial abuse whilst waiting for a bus. She got on the bus to have one woman carry on the crap about white people to the point where the entire bus was shouting at her to shut up and apologising. Cathryn was pushed to the point where she couldn't cope with it anymore and told the bus driver to let her off. After four years without smoking, another volunteer, Tiga, came and rescued her with a packet of fags and a bottle of waragi. 

Then, worst of all, she got on a bus to Kigali which then hit and killed a six-year-old kid. She finally snapped, flagged down a car, which took her to the capital, and she's been trying to re-group since. Then that tit at the restaurant. In the grand scheme of worst weeks ever, she wins first prize with honours.

Anyway, I went in to VSO again yesterday morning to try and print out my sodding IT report, which is driving me nuts. Every time I go to do it something goes wrong. First it was losing the receipts, which I sorted by collecting signatures again. Next, I went to the VSO office to print it out. No one else was there. I sat down, inserted the flash disk, and suddenly another volunteer appears. He's from right up north, so rarely gets to use the internet. He asked how long I'd be, as he just wanted to send one e-mail. Feeling generous, I shifted over and let him go first... He typed the entire e-mail with one finger. 20 minutes later, I collected my stuff up and went to plug in my laptop next door to get on with some work.

When he finally left I went in, popped my flash disk back in, and the electricity went off. All day.

Thankfully, Cathryn was in so we went into town to meet Judy and had a fabulous salad at Bourbon. The highest intake of vitamins I've had in weeks. My body was shaking.

After that, I went to the Post Office and collected four parcels with chocolate, clothes and pens - thanks Dad & Aunty Jean :) You rock.

But that's where the sunny day ended. My next port of call was Electrogaz, to sort out my electric bill. I'd already been to the local office but no one spoke English and they basically ignored me. I'd e-mailed twice with no reply, so the only option left was to go to the head office.

My bill for April said that I had spent nothing at all on water. My bill for May said that I had spent over £50 on water. An absolutely unthinkable amount of money. A third of my monthly allowance. Martine's is less than £2 a month. My electricity is £5 a month. Even if this was a combined bill for the past six months, it couldn't possibly come to that amount.

The lady on reception, Matrice, was absolutely lovely and very helpful. Then one of the managers came by and acted like a bit of a div. She had to interpret for us between Kinyarwanda and English. Every time she tried to translate for me, he'd just carry on talking over her, so I eventually had to snap at him to wait until she had finished. Just basic common courtesy.

Eventually, I was taken up to see the head of Bill Management or whatever. He was a very nice man and did try to help, but he had absolutely no idea about customer care. It started off well, then I ended up losing my temper big time, about the point he told me I needed to pay FRW 1,000 to get someone to come and take a look at the problem. He said that it was probably air pressure from leaving my taps on which was pushing up the metre, and that I'd still have to pay for it! Paying for air from a fecking water company when I never have any water! Feckers. Blah.

Eventually, I completely lost it. He just kept 'imagining' things. He had no idea what the problem was and all of the systems were down so he couldn't check my bill, but every second sentence was 'I'm imagining what has happened...' After almost an hour of this crap, I was right on the edge of tears and had to text Cathryn to come and get me. She fielded me out of there expertly. Matrice even came to see what was wrong, and said she was sorry they hadn't been helpful. That woman should be promoted to head of the company - she's utterly brilliant and completely customer savvy. Possibly the only one in the entire building who is.

So, problem still not solved. Someone is coming at 8am Monday morning to check the metre again. I took the bill to VSO where Lydia, the new Head of Finance (another top lady) agreed that it looked completely ridiculous. They'll hopefully step in on my behalf if we can't get it sorted out on Monday.

Cathryn and I went on an ice-cream binge after that :)

It's just that such very, very simple things here take sooooo fucking long. You have to fight for every inch. I know we get crap customer services in the UK, I was once reduced to tears by an Indian call centre - but here, it's every single thing you try to do, no matter how simple. As the customer you're always wrong. Even ordering food in a bar. Some days you shrug and smile, some days you just put your head in your hands and cry.

Anyway, Electrogaz, BCR Bank and MTN are my absolute rubbish companies of all time ever. Bourbon Coffee Shop and Bancor get the thumbs-up for being the best so far in Rwanda. Bancor, to be fair, is Belgian run - absolute efficiency and polite smiles.

Pants to it all.

Today is another public holiday - huzah! Actually, I think today is Independence Day and Tuesday was Liberation Day. Each major town in Rwanda has a different Liberation Day as the RPF swept down through the country. Either way, it's a lovely long weekend.

Went to Stella and La Planet with Martine, Samira, Mel and Els last night for food and plenty of drinks. It was a really good night, but I was a bit blottoed after. I had a really long chat with Dad, which was nice. Good rant about Electrogaz :op Just over six weeks now until they arrive :)

Loving lazy days. Today I got a message from Suite101 saying that my article on when to use an aprostrophe had won Editor's Choice because it:

"...exemplifies the quality content, excellent presentation, and high standard we are striving for at Suite101."

Yay me :)