To have electricity you have to pay for it.

Last Friday evening I was having a dinner party at my borrowed flat. I was just warming up the oven to bake the lasagna and boiling water for tea when the power went out. Looking outside I could see that the neighbours still had power so I checked the fuse box- none of the fuses were blown. Hmmm What could have been the problem?
Well my colleague asked if I was out of credit. She came into my kitchen and looked at a little box (which I thought was part of an alarm system) and read clearly that my credit had run out. In Zambia they are implementing a pay-for-use electricity system. Just like a pre-paid cell phone you buy credit, enter the credit (in this case into the little box that looks like an alarm) and get your electricity. If your credit runs out your power is cut.
No one told me of such a system and it turns out that I wasn't suppose to buy credit, rather I was suppose to look at the little box and when the credit was getting low I was suppose to call the compound manager to get more credit. How was I suppose to know about this system?
It was a bit embarrassing have to pack up dinner and head off to Millica's house to use her oven! At least I have a good story.....