Sans-elec Senelec

We call Senelec, the electric company, Sans-elec (without electricity) since the hot season (my terminology, not official) the power goes out on a regular basis for hours at a time. Now that I have my own place, I am faced with the realities of bill paying, especially to the horrible Senelec.

Houses in Dakar do no exactly have addresses. To clarify, street names don’t necessarily exist in all places. My street, for example, has neither a name nor a number. My house has a number and my neighborhood has a name so technically my address is villa number 7622 Mermoz Pyrotechnique Dakar, Senegal. There are streets in Dakar that have names or numbers making mail delivery much easier. My mail (all bills) takes forever to arrive at my doorstep. By the time the mailperson decides to head to my sandy street, I have about 3 days to pay the bills.

I wrote this blog in a notebook while in Senelec waiting to pay my electrical bill. I arrived an hour and 15 minutes ago and took a ticket. The ticket reads 303 and the number being called was 239. I anticipate being here for a long time. My other waiting comrades look at me strangely since I am the only toubab in this office. Most toubabs send their maids to wait it out or drop off a check in a drop box. Since I feel that my maid has better things to do than pay bills and I don have a bank account in Senegal, I am obliged to sit here and reread the newspaper a million times.

What is frustrating about Senelec is that there are about 100 people waiting to pay their bill and there is only one cashier open. It kills me not only because I have to wait here but also because there are so many unemployed people in this city and it would not be too difficult to train them to train them in the ways of Senelec. This problem is omnipresent in institutions like the post office, phone company, and at the banks.

I lost my temper at the phone company a couple of months ago when I waited for a hour and a half to be treated terribly by the woman taking down my information. Not only did she insult me personally but she blamed me for screwing up my address. I went to speak to a supervisor who was surprisingly receptive to my criticisms. Did it change anything? No, but I felt better.

So I am sitting here waiting to pay a bill. The idea of waiting to give a mega company that has a monopoly on the electricity more money disgusts me. Senelec doesn’t care whether they make people wait because in the end people have to pay. If you refuse to pay, they cut off your electricity and you still lose. Thankfully my bill is only about $14 for the month of January. I know people that pay $180 for 2 months.

So it’s been an hour and a half and we are on number 240. A man has started complain loudly and provoke a mutiny. He said something to the effect of, “why are you people not speaking up, you are sitting there like idiots.” He got up and left in a huff. This grain of truth motivated me seek out a supervisor. To get to the supervisor I had to speak to two security guards who thought I was telling them a joke when I said I wanted to complain. After being shown to the supervisor’s office, I waited for 20 minutes to see him and he never emerged I asked for another supervisor and was sent to where the “old people”, over the age of 55 in Senegal, go to pay their bills. Their line was considerably shorter. Nobody in that section of the office understood why I was there so I was obliged to retreat to the young people waiting area.

After 3 hours of waiting and 45 people still ahead of me I decided to leave without paying. They were going to close for lunch and prayer since it was Friday and the lunch/prayer break lasts about 2 hours. Additionally, I did not want to wait any longer without the minor satisfaction of watching the numbers increase.

Update, I returned to Senelec the following day, set on paying my bill and acting in a strategic manner. I took a number and left the office to visit my friend Awa. An hour later I returned and realized that there were still 40 people ahead of me. Since I was better equipped to wait, I whipped out a book and read 200 pages (not joking) and played about 17 games of Tetris on my cell phone. In the end, I waited 4 hours in the young people waiting room, through the lunch break, to pay the bill. The woman at the cashier was not friendly and neither was I. She tried to pretend that she didn’t have the change I needed from my bill. I almost lost my temper and screamed but opted for a snarky comment about how I’ve watched her take people’s money for the past four hours and am convinced she has the 3, 750 CFA that I am owed. After taking my money and leaving I was in a terrible mood but was content that I had paid my bill. Unfortunately, this exercise will be repeated until I leave this country or find an old person to pay my bills.