Why Everything Should be Duct Tape-able

As in most parts of the world, things break in Mozambique. Sometimes it's after years of use, and it was just it's time to go. Other times a neighbor borrows it and, not knowing how to properly use it, opens it the wrong way. There's things that you drop on the ground when surprised, and others that you throw on the ground in a fit of rage after being told there's no more of you favorite chocolate spread (Marlon Brando actually yelled NUTELAAAAAA!!, but was misheard). And of course, there are the things that magically break after a short lifespan just because they're manufactured at the lowest possible quality to be sold at the cheapest possible price to the impoverished African market.

But no matter how it breaks, you often need to fix it, and this generally puts items into two categories: Duct Tape-able and non-Duct Tape-able. Luckily, the gross majority of items fall into the first and easiest category. Plastic chair that begun to split from regular use? Duct tape! Head lamp that your neighbor ripped open when trying to change the batteries that had been wasted playing "Americano"? Duct tape! Plastic water basin that broke after falling from your empregado's head while full? Duct tape! Laptop that split open after tumbling from the unstable tower of boxes and newspapers which put it at the perfect height for video conferencing? Duct tape! Duct tape! Duct tape! Duct tape!

But for those few, sorry, items which will not succumb to the awesome powers

Wire + Pot lid + Coil + MacGyverness=
Making pasta and sauce at the same time!

of Duct Tape, more creative and time intensive solutions are required. Recently, I had to take this course of action with my electrical stove, which has been with me for well over a year. After one burner transitioned from working perfectly, to working well, to heating food while shocking the user, to only shocking the users while heating nothing, I decided it was time to replace the mis-behaving coil. But unlike fixing an item in the US, here there was no possibility of ordering the spare part from Amazon and having it delivered to my house.

Instead, I had to spend a half a day searching for the replacement coil in Quelimane (unsuccessfully) and another half a day searching for the replacement coil in Nampula (successfully). Upon returning to my home from the most recent of the trips, I realized that I had thrown away an essential piece from the broken coil. So instead of having a burner coil that would stay in place but wouldn't heat up, I had a burner coil which would heat up but would fall into the stove itself. So after banging my head against the wall for a minute, I punched some holes in an old extra pot lid and jerry-rigged the stove coil to it with some left over wire. Then all I had to do was bring the stove to my friendly neighborhood repairman (thanks Segundo) and have him solder the new coil to the wiring.

Now if only they made heat resistant, mold-able but stiff Duct Tape. Beyond never needing any other material ever again, I would have had two working burners and one happy PCV 3 weeks ago!