6 ms·

As someone who's spent the last 3 years in Africa, if there's one thing I learnt here is that if it can be fixed, they'll find a way to fix it.

by dhoe 11mo ago

chrneu 11mo ago
lol yeah I was gonna say that they fix everything. They can't just Amazon prime new shit. It's weird how OP just assumes they're inept at repairs when that's just not true at all.
- MrsPeaches 11mo ago
  I didn’t say, nor do I assume, people are inept at repairs. I said that the communities that are being targeted with off-grid solar don’t currently have the skills or infrastructure required to maintain these systems. It’s something I’ve seen with my own eyes and that I’ve read in academic literature as a widespread problem. Cross and Murray 2018 [1] being one the first papers to talk about it, I saw it myself for the first time around that time in Tanzania. I stayed in a village where each house had at least 2 broken solar lanterns stored in a corner (like those old routers people love to keep). The next closest repair shop was first 30min motorbike ride then a 2 hour bus ride away. This was a village of 8,000 people. Yes, the person with a diploma from the local technical college can fix a lot of things but they live in the local town with grid electric etc. They don’t live in these remote rural regions where off grid is so important/impactful. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618304055 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221462961... Edit: The solution is to teach more people how to design, build and maintain solar energy systems so that the skills are embedded in off grid communities and give them the tools to carry out the work. You can do a lot with a soldering iron and good grasp of electronics!
  - jabl 11mo ago
    Well, what is the alternative then? Probably the same problem when their diesel generator conks out. Small things you can do yourself, but rapidly you run into a situation where you need spare parts, or at least a competently run machine shop.
    - ducttapecrown 11mo ago
      How long did it take for mobile repair shops to proliferate? Surely solar repair shops will also appear.
- potato3732842 11mo ago
  It's not even Amazon prime. It's all the random industrial doodads you need to keep a modern economy running. The "modern world supply chain" just doesn't go into africa much or at least not in a way that general commerce has easy access to.
DanielHB 11mo ago
Brazilian person here, when I moved to Europe I was baffled I couldn't find shops that fixed electronics. Like I wanted to get my Android phone charging port replaced, I literally couldn't find a shop in my city willing to do the repair. I eventually went back to Brazil and had it fixed there and replaced the battery. Freaking phone lasted 8 years on my very clumsly hands, still works even. The fix cost me ~30 usd plus the battery cost.
- carlosjobim 11mo ago
  Somebody who has the skills to fix electronics will be working with fixing devices which are much more expensive and critical than cell phones. Industrial dishwasher breaks down? You need to get an electrician there ASAP. Cell phone breaks down? Throw it away and buy a new one. Brazil has very low salaries for skilled workers, so it makes sense that it's cheap to find somebody to fix your phone.
  - MrsPeaches 11mo ago
    Note that mobile phone repair is the no. 1 service provided by repair shops in rural areas of many countries in Africa. Like 50%+ of all repairs are mobile phone repairs
    - marcosdumay 11mo ago
      Yes, it's something extremely valuable, an expensive portable, and the new models all just keep getting worse and worse. There's no reason not to fix them. It's also a repair that demands some amount of training. I imagine people fix a lot of things without getting them to a shop.
  - carlosjobim 11mo ago
    Hackers are down voting my comment. My question to them: If you could get paid twice the salary per hour to repair expensive machines, would you spend your time repairing mobile phones? Everybody wants that juicy, juicy cheap labour, but nobody wants to be the cheap worker.

As someone who's spent the last 3 years in Africa, if there's one thing I learnt here is that if it can be fixed, they'll find a way to fix it.

by dhoe 11mo ago

As someone who's spent the last 3 years in Africa, if there's one thing I learnt here is that if it can be fixed, they'll find a way to fix it.

chrneu 11mo ago

lol yeah I was gonna say that they fix everything. They can't just Amazon prime new shit. It's weird how OP just assumes they're inept at repairs when that's just not true at all.

MrsPeaches 11mo ago
I didn’t say, nor do I assume, people are inept at repairs. I said that the communities that are being targeted with off-grid solar don’t currently have the skills or infrastructure required to maintain these systems. It’s something I’ve seen with my own eyes and that I’ve read in academic literature as a widespread problem. Cross and Murray 2018 [1] being one the first papers to talk about it, I saw it myself for the first time around that time in Tanzania. I stayed in a village where each house had at least 2 broken solar lanterns stored in a corner (like those old routers people love to keep). The next closest repair shop was first 30min motorbike ride then a 2 hour bus ride away. This was a village of 8,000 people. Yes, the person with a diploma from the local technical college can fix a lot of things but they live in the local town with grid electric etc. They don’t live in these remote rural regions where off grid is so important/impactful. [1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2214629618304055 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S221462961... Edit: The solution is to teach more people how to design, build and maintain solar energy systems so that the skills are embedded in off grid communities and give them the tools to carry out the work. You can do a lot with a soldering iron and good grasp of electronics!
- jabl 11mo ago
  Well, what is the alternative then? Probably the same problem when their diesel generator conks out. Small things you can do yourself, but rapidly you run into a situation where you need spare parts, or at least a competently run machine shop.
  - ducttapecrown 11mo ago
    How long did it take for mobile repair shops to proliferate? Surely solar repair shops will also appear.
potato3732842 11mo ago
It's not even Amazon prime. It's all the random industrial doodads you need to keep a modern economy running. The "modern world supply chain" just doesn't go into africa much or at least not in a way that general commerce has easy access to.

DanielHB 11mo ago

Brazilian person here, when I moved to Europe I was baffled I couldn't find shops that fixed electronics. Like I wanted to get my Android phone charging port replaced, I literally couldn't find a shop in my city willing to do the repair. I eventually went back to Brazil and had it fixed there and replaced the battery. Freaking phone lasted 8 years on my very clumsly hands, still works even. The fix cost me ~30 usd plus the battery cost.

carlosjobim 11mo ago
Somebody who has the skills to fix electronics will be working with fixing devices which are much more expensive and critical than cell phones. Industrial dishwasher breaks down? You need to get an electrician there ASAP. Cell phone breaks down? Throw it away and buy a new one. Brazil has very low salaries for skilled workers, so it makes sense that it's cheap to find somebody to fix your phone.
- MrsPeaches 11mo ago
  Note that mobile phone repair is the no. 1 service provided by repair shops in rural areas of many countries in Africa. Like 50%+ of all repairs are mobile phone repairs
  - marcosdumay 11mo ago
    Yes, it's something extremely valuable, an expensive portable, and the new models all just keep getting worse and worse. There's no reason not to fix them. It's also a repair that demands some amount of training. I imagine people fix a lot of things without getting them to a shop.
- carlosjobim 11mo ago
  Hackers are down voting my comment. My question to them: If you could get paid twice the salary per hour to repair expensive machines, would you spend your time repairing mobile phones? Everybody wants that juicy, juicy cheap labour, but nobody wants to be the cheap worker.