One day I walked into the office in Dakar and my computer refused to turn on. Dakar is not the kind of town where you can buy a new laptop. My subsequent actions, by complete coincidence, match up with the 5 stages of grief:
(1) Denial: I spent the next 4 hours doing full reboots, googling solutions on my phone, taking calls, and hoping that it would fix itself. It did not.
(2) Anger: Convinced that the battery was the culprit, I became determined to pop it out. I went to a dusty nearby store which had the right type of screwdrivers, and started some open-heart surgery before chickening out when I saw that wires would be involved. I then did a bit more googling and found a self-proclaimed facebook computer doctor; so I hopped on a taxi, wandered frantically through sandy back-alleys, found his shop (one windowless room, jam packed with electronics and 3-4 guys arguing in Wolof) through a dark hallway in an unmarked building. He performed the surgery, only to learn that it was an OS problem, not the battery. I grabbed my computer back and got out of there.
(3) Bargaining: The next day I committed to more thorough research, found two seemingly rock-solid options, called both to get quotes and opinions, and dropped my computer off at the closer one (which clearly proved its legitimacy with a sign so huge that it mostly blocked the door). I went back the next day and he told me that it was the hard drive, not the OS. I called up the other option (“Dorcas”), who convinced me that they were best able to solve the problem. I took the now-useless lump of metal to Dorcas and they promptly told me that they’d need to buy a new hard drive, at great expense. I said OK.
(4) Depression: On the way back from Dorcas, I bought 4 ice creams and ate them all in the taxi, ignoring the increasingly concerned looks from the driver.
(5) Acceptance: I borrowed a backup laptop from my manager and hopped on a plane to Nigeria, fully convinced that I would never see my sleek machine again. It had been swallowed up, as so many other things have, by this crazy life, with its massive cons which are somehow dwarfed by even greater pros. The machine that my job depends entirely upon had become another pawn in the game.
Amazingly, this story has a rare happy ending. Several weeks later, my manager showed up in my Nigeria with my fully restored laptop. Dorcas had come through for me. The adventure had been worth it.