THE BIG ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM

Hello,

Bringing electricity to the village is a noble cause. However, there is this big elephant in the room that I have tried to ignore for many years. Sometimes, I would rather drown in the ocean than talk about it: the almighty dollar. Over the last decade, I worked tirelessly with the hope that one day I would save enough money to realize this goal. It turns out, my employers paid me just enough to not drop dead. In the process, I lost two people that are dearest to my heart.

My grand mother who raised me in the village, passed away in 2002. I stayed strong and kept going hoping that one day I would get a bigger paycheck to be able to bring electricity to my village.

Then, I started caring for my father in 2009.  He had heart attack twice and I was able to save his life. From 2009 to 2011, he kept asking me to come visit even for one day. I always told him I will come. To be honest, I was ashamed to come see him with nothing to show for my 12 years of absence. In reality, he did not care, he just wanted to see me. On november 28th of 2011, he had another heart attack and he did not survive this time.

As hypocritical as this might sound, I found a way to fly to Africa within 2 days to bury him. This is the biggest regret of my life. Now when I look back at all the opportunities I had to go visit him just for a weekend, I cannot put in words the sadness I feel. If you are reading this and still have both or one of your parents alive, I beg you, please stop right here and attend to their needs. Nothing in this world will replace them and when they are gone, they are REALLY GONE FOREVER. No matter what issue you have with them or with yourself, get over it for your own well being.

Back to the elephant in the room, now I find myself sitting here, wasted 12 years in corporate rate race, lost the two most important people in my life and I still need funds to get this micro hydro project done.

One thing I know for sure is that, while it is good to be optimistic, I also need to be realistic and honest with myself. The reality is, I do not see any possible way a full time position can make this happen. At the same time, I need a full time job to keep my head above water so that I can get going. But again, full time job steals the best available time I have. I am sure I am not alone in this situation, but I thought I would share in case you felt you were the only one struggling with it.

Now, I have looked at all the options on the table.

 - Create a nonprofit: this involves a big load of bureaucracy just to have a licence to beg. I honestly don't think I am good at begging.

- Expand my current business: I have a small computer programming and data mining company. Pretty much, I lock myself into 6 months to one year contract and then find another contract after that. This is my big problem right here. Data mining business model requires physical presence all the time as the clients prefer to have the contractor onsite to work with their data.

- Find another business model: unless you can get funding for a breakthrough technology, it is getting harder and harder for computer programmers to make it without a full time job. Besides, I am running out of time to spend another decade trying a new business model.

- Cut to the chase: At the end of the day, what I really want is to bring electricity to this village. If I can accomplish this, I will leave this earth with a peace of mind. So instead of spending my time on all these circumvoluted ways to get there, I am going to cut to the chase. I will find ways to provide value to people who will help me get this done.

You may wonder why electricity in this village. Well, the tradition in the village is that people have kids and as soon as the children reach school age, they are sent to the city. The eldery are left behind. If the village had electricity, it would have had an education system up to high school at least and I would not have needed to leave my grand mother behind. I would have been there when she needed me the most as she was there when I needed her. If I can help future generations spend more time with their parents and grand parents and ease the suffering of the village people by partially solving their energy problem, I will be happy to leave this planet and rejoin my ancestors.

If you have ideas that I can use to provide value to people so that they can contribute financially without me begging, please let me know. Thank you!