Power for the People

It’s warm, lights dimmed to create the perfect ambiance as we indulge in the gastronomic delights expertly crafted by talented South African Indian chefs. All around people basking in the glow of a night on the town, no thought as to the underlying machinations making this all possible. Should they?

It’s been eleven hours since the power decided to take a breather. Workers on strike, sabotage is not an unlikely weapon backing the cause.

Arriving home, we are faced with the task of manually opening the security gate as the backup battery has not performed to standard. It’s cold, the release switch to shift the gate to manual, well secured, the hope being it would not be necessary to access. We struggle, finally prevailing just as power is restored. Everyone rushes to plug in their various, life-enhancing devices, cell phones, laptops, etc., who knows how soon we will, once again, be the beneficiaries of a recurrence?

It’s another day in the life of the South African populous, always at the mercy of the now dysfunctional state-owned power company better known as Eskom. Established in 1923 as the Electricity Supply Commission, then once the Afrikaaners took control, Elektrisiteitvoorsieningkommissie. Quite the mouthful, regardless power was supplied with minimal interruption, something any economy, wishing to advance, relies upon. No doubt some cynics/critics, of which there are many, may have found new, creative terms for the acronym.

Load shedding, initiated around 2007, is the norm. For most in the civilized world, this wouldn’t mean what it does here. Is power outage too strong a term? ‘Well, we have power but we are not going to give it to you as we feel the neighbors are nicer so we’ve decided to give it to them. As a civilized group they do, in most instances, advise customers when they could expect to be snubbed, allowing for some semblance of adjustment.

Understand this only applies to those who have access. Not all do, conservatively, somewhere in the region of 20% of the country do not connect to the grid, legally anyway, begging the question as to whether this qualifies as a first-world country. It might have been a short while ago, however, it does highlight how things have changed.

Aware of the impending outage, it’s a common occurrence, this one a manageable 10 pm, we return home and are all in our rooms, flashlights at the ready. As promised, we are left in the dark. It will soon be cold as the heating is predominately electric.

Within minutes a predicted thunderstorm lights up the night sky. Rain is welcome as drought is not uncommon (when it rains it pours). The irony doesn’t escape me. Where I live it’s the thunderstorm that may, on occasion, induce a power outage, but things here are upside down, they are on the wrong side of the globe.

Cough, sputter, sputter, cough, invisible fumes spewing as the generator, after some coaxing, begrudgingly kicks into life. I’m now coughing too, unaccustomed to the smell and oxygen deprivation caused by these somewhat ubiquitous, all too necessary, polluters.

Further alienating many, the cost of installing various forms of backup power is prohibitive (load-shifting?). Installation aside, operating, most utilize either diesel or petrol (gas), also costly. For those without, the routine of resetting clocks, manual opening or closing of gates, garage doors, and alternate forms of heating, are among the many discomforts.

The ineptitude has spurred another cottage industry, one that is required to support the already well-established, excessive, security boon. Everything relies on power. Those who can have already created their own neighborhood alliances hiring private security firms/guards, all to complement their existing fortress-like homes.

Now, with that issue addressed, the discussions turn to the creation of their own power networks outside of the state supply. Better yet, if they can create an efficient system they could ostensibly sell power back to the government, although it might be difficult to collect payment from a bankrupt system with foreign debts amounting to billions.

This is a country in transition. How far down can you sink before it is too late to turn things around? Freedom from oppression a wonderful thing, economic segregation (apartheid), however, fast becoming insurmountable.