How I Became a One-man Twitter Pitchfork Mob

I never wanted a Twitter account. In fact, I intentionally tried to stay as far away from Twitter as possible. While I have considered having a HOPE Project Twitter account to try to publicize the work that we do, that would simply be for posting content about our work, not to engage in any type of discourse. Like what I do on Facebook. I don’t think civil discourse is even possible on Twitter anymore from what I have seen of it. But I must admit that I now have a Twitter account. However, it is not for any reason that you would guess.

Power outages are a way of life in Kenya.  The power can go off at any time and for no apparent reason, such as inclement weather. I suspect that the underlying reasons are things like equipment failure and supply shortfalls.  Not only does the power go off with no advance warning, but you are in the dark (both literally and figuratively) as to when the power will be restored. There are no public service announcements to inform people about what is going on.

Typically, the outage lasts less than an hour, but it could last several hours or a whole day. You just do not know. Power is usually restored by nightfall. Kenyans tell me that this is because workers wait until after normal work hours to do real work so that they can collect overtime.

I probably should not really be complaining about power as many of our HOPE families do not even have electricity in their homes. In my defense, I am completely dependent on a computer and internet access for my ministry work. No power means no use of a computer and no internet.

If random power outages of uncertain duration are not bad enough in the office, I have been battling with an even worse situation at home. Since the beginning of the year. I’ve been without power at home for four days, another time for three days, and another time for two days. When I looked out the windows during these periods, there were lights all around and everyone had electricity except me – not a good feeling. As it turned out, the power line from the pole to my house runs underground and was very old and needed to be changed. The wire was corroded and would not stay securely attached to the power line on the pole.

However, getting the power company here to fix the problem was no easy task. I had to literally call the power company five times or more a day every day to finally get them to come, which usually occurred several days after I began my calling campaign. All I ever got from customer service was the equivalent of “the check is in the mail” response to my calls, but no one ever showed up. When someone finally showed up, all I could get them to do was simply reattach the wire to restore power, but not actually fix the underlying corrosion issue. There was always some excuse as to why they could not run a new above ground wire at that time. In typical fashion, the technicians would show up after dark. While it was not too dark for them to climb the pole (there are no boom trucks, so a technician actually climbs the pole), it was apparently too dark to run the new power wire. Otherwise, they couldn’t run the wire because their shift was over. Each time, I was promised that someone would come back tomorrow to run a new above ground wire, but by now as you can guess, no one ever showed up. This initiated more calls to the power company and more empty promises and excuses. The excuse I like the best is that they had to procure the wire. Doesn’t a power company stock wire? Isn’t this what they do?

Lest you think this is because I am not Kenyan, I enlisted my landlord in the battle. He is Kenyan and had no better luck than me. Like most Kenyans, he is resigned to the fact that like most things in Kenya, the power company is completely corrupt. The second time my electricity went out this year for the three days, he had to pay a private contractor to reattach the power line back to the pole as we just could not get the power company to respond. After having been previously without electricity for four days and now for three days, I had had enough and begged him to do something. Alas, this was just a temporary fix and as we all knew would happen, the connection came loose again.

This brings me to last week. As expected, power wire detached again, and I was without electricity for two days this time. My landlord called the power company several times a day and through the grace of God they showed up on the second day to reattach the power line. Again, I was promised that someone would come the next day to install a new above ground wire. As expected, no came and calls to the power company lead to more empty promises. At least I had power for the time being. The next day when I came home from work, there was a crew working on my street. I explained to the crew my situation and was again promised that someone would come tomorrow. Even though they were right there working, they told me that they do not have wire with them, which I’m sure was not true. When I called customer service, the told me the wire needed to be procured. What kind of power repair crew does not have wire in the truck? What kind of power company doesn’t have wire readily available? As you can guess, no one showed up the next day.

At this point I was at my wit’s end. I knew it was just a matter of time before the power line disconnected again and I would be without power for God only knows how many days until the power company showed up to reattach the line. It would mean multiple daily calls to the power company and putting up with more lies and promises that mean nothing.

A Kenyan friend of mine, who not only does not have a Twitter account, but does not even have a smart phone, suggested that I tweet at the power company. He had heard that when you tweet, the power company responds. With nothing to lose, for the first time in my life, I created a twitter account and tweeted for the first time.

I got a quick reply.

I probably should have started my Twitter campaign a little more diplomatically, but by this point I was beyond frustrated. After hearing nothing further, a few days later, I tweeted.

To which they replied,

A few days later, I tweeted again.

This prompted the following reply.

I had plans to step up my Twitter campaign and be even more aggressive as I just could not take it anymore. Then lo and behold, the next day I get a call stating that they are coming to install a new power wire to the house. I was in the office and dropped everything to rush home to meet them. I didn’t want to provide them with any excuse not to fix the corroded wire. If I was not there when they arrived, they would not wait and all my efforts to this point would have been wasted.

I am happy to say that there is a happy ending to this story. The crew did show up around an hour after calling me and ran a brand new above power line to the house. They tell me that this new power line is secure and should not come loose. While that remains to be seen, I am so grateful to have power and not have to live under the constant fear of the line detaching and being plunged into darkness for an unknown period of time while having to beg for someone to come fix my power.

I have to say this whole Twitter experience was both empowering and sad. I am certain that without my tweets, I would still have the old, corroded power line and be living under the shadow of a ticking power outage time bomb. On the other hand, it is so sad that I had to resort to using Twitter to cudgel the power company into doing what they should have done all along.

It is funny that, like companies all over the world, the power company here bent to the will of a small minority, in my case a minority of one, of vocal activists. I had just opened my Twitter account and had no followers. It is sad that Twitter users with not many more followers than me have been the cause of people losing their jobs and ruining their lives. I was not attempting to do anything like that. I just wanted someone to fix my power line.

I can see how people can get addicted to the power they can potentially yield with Twitter. It really costs you nothing. You don’t have to sacrifice anything for the cause. Unless you are outed, you can tweet in complete anonymity. Twitter mobs require no investment on the part of the participants. This is what I see as the big issue with people who use Twitter in this manner. Any progress made without sacrifice is not real progress. (OK, I just wrote that, but then I Googled it to see if anyone had said something like this before. I found this quote by James Allen. Since I was not previously familiar with this quote, I’m taking credit! My thoughts on this topic come from a biblical perspective. In a fallen world, to truly live, to truly progress requires sacrifice, which is demonstrated to us by the suffering and death of Jesus.)

It is easy to sit behind your computer and batter people with tweets when you do not have to put any skin in the game. Unfortunately, while this behavior may make you feel virtuous, it is inauthentic. We instead need people who will invest in what is good and be willing to make sacrifices for the good of others. Tweets do not do this.

God is good.