The first day was still quite bumpy, both for me and for the Ghanaians.
I was already right about the choice of groups. What I have now slowly learned.
All of them are trained mechanics who have been servicing the entire fleet for years and are familiar with car electrics, who know how to look for faults, who know how to fix faults. They also service CAT (Caterpillar) machines with diagnostic adapters and laptops. So I thought to myself: What am I supposed to do here?
Until I realised that they don’t get anywhere when it comes to control units. Then I spent two days answering all kinds of questions about the wiring system and control units and went through circuit diagrams – i.e. the examples from my book. What is missing here is a vehicle diagnosis and the service documents for the vehicles. The cars are all new, about 2-9 years old, and you won’t get far without a diagnosis. The two KIA buses are also only 10 years old, so they are also relatively new.
Then I went to the boss, explained the situation to him and said that his people can’t get anywhere without these diagnostic computers and can’t take the next step in maintaining the cars. He looks at me, says yes, we’ll do it, gives me a phone number in Buxtehude and tells me to order them if they don’t cost more than 2,000 €. That’s a lot of money here, considering that the average monthly income in Ghana is 120 €. So now I can look for the right equipment.
With group B I discussed the basics of electrical engineering. What is voltage, current, resistance, power, work, etc.?
It’s really exhausting, because just reading out of the book doesn’t work, so I have to make new slides for each day and put them in small enough pieces so that they’re still understandable. Everyone knows the basics of physics, so it actually goes quite well.
Since everything is done via WhatsApp, I have created two WhatsApp groups with the respective participants and then send both groups a written report of what we did that day.
Up until Friday, things were going pretty smoothly, I found the right essay point and the right pace.
On Saturday I went for a walk and Benjamin came up to me. “Hi Erwin, how are you, what are you doing today.”
Looking back on the week, it was quite a good start. But I’m telling you, it’s brutally exhausting here – it’s not a holiday.
Accommodation and food are good, you can’t complain about that. I have a huge house all to myself. The club house of the golf course is across the road. Occasionally, peacocks come to visit me on the terrace.
It can happen that you want to take a shower and there is no water. Or that the electricity goes out at least 3 times a day. Today it happened during dinner. Zack – electricity gone, air conditioning off, everything pitch black. Then I went into the bedroom, fetched my torch, put it on the table, then I could continue eating.
It works.
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