Published on February 9th, 2019
Imagine meeting someone from a rural area in Tanzania, what could you have in common? One answer could be Facebook. In a country with only 40% of people have access to grid electricity1 , how could they watch TV, get access to the Internet and even get on social media?
On Jan 11th 2019, GMTaC lab SITS workshop members paid a visit to the rural area of Dar es Salaam thanks to Professor Joseph Matiko, who offered to drive us there and helped to translate. After driving around 20 miles away from the capital, we are on an arc-shaped red dirt path leading to the opposite direction of gentrification, along the road we saw coconut trees and people’s houses sparsely sit in the distance, some are ratty and some are new. We stoped at a place with a house amid the trees situating not far away from us and decided to see the whereabouts.
Well where the family get water from
Local man and his family
We trudged through the bushes, as we got close to the house, Professor Matiko firstly walked in and greeted with the man of the house, then we entered their yard after getting permissions. What came in our sights was a well where they got water from, then Professor Parks asked about how they get access to electricity, and the answer is Solar Panel. They can watch TV, charge their mobile phone, and getting lights from the battery charged by solar panel. The man of the house have a smartphone, yet he said the solar panel is detrimental to the phone’s battery for the unstable output. We happened to have portable power banks with us, so that we could gave them as gifts.
Old man and his grandson
New houses built by a private company
Then we visited an old man living with his sons and grandson, though he himself does not use phone nor with access to electricity, his son does have mobile phone and even Facebook. His son watch TV in his neighbour’s place. They also built their own houses, one of which are made from mud and coconut tree leaves. Our last stop was a village with newly built houses sitting neatly next to each other. We talked to a woman living there, and she told us the houses were built by a private company. They rent the house with a monthly rate of 15000 Tanzanian shilling (6.46 USD). They don’t have electricity in their home, but she has mobile phone, and she needs to visit her neighbours who have solar panels to charge her phone, which usually cost money.

We visited two solar panel sellers the next day and talked with the hospitable staffs there. We learnt that a big portion of the solar panels are imported from Shenzen, the “Silicon Valley of China”, and people with different need can buy solar panels with different sizes. People cannot afford the whole panel immediately can pay in installments. And most importantly, solar panel is much cheaper than grid electricity in the long run.
Talking about solar power, people may relate it to futuristic scenes of renewable energies and cutting-edge technologies, yet the presence of solar energy in Tanzania is more ubiquitous than most countries I’ve visited, especially in rural areas where the governmental infrastructures cannot reach. The ever-bright sun and solar technologies have provided Tanzania a later mover advantage of using renewable energy. It is not wise to stereotype a country behind in economy as underdeveloped in every ways, isn’t sustainable living much better than consumerism?
1 “How Tanzania plans to light up a million homes with solar power” CNN. October 29, 2015. Accessed February 02, 2019. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/oct/29/how-tanzania-plans-to-light-up-a-million-homes-with-solar-power