Darkest Africa

(Yup, I'm back!)

The blogs will probably be full of it this morning, this latest blackout we've had in the Western Cape. Mine may be one of many going on about a lack of power and how life seems to grind to a halt.

Our first blackout was Saturday, around midday. Lasted a couple of hours, then came back on and we all rejoiced.

But early Sunday morning I noticed the streetlight outside my window flicker and die. Then come back to life, then die again. Got up, and all the streetlights were out. Little did I know that it was only a precursor to a general power failure shortly thereafter....

Around 5 in the morning everything went dead. When we got up, it was still dead. Nothing unusual, we sometimes have an outage that lasts and hour or two. But there was still no power come lunchtime. (And the kid was seriously bored! Such a dependence on electronic entertainment...)

Then the maintenance guy came around, telling us the local power producers had said "three days". THREE days!!! A few hours I can handle, but not three days. What about all the stuff in my fridge and freezer? I tend to buy the week's bread and milk on a Friday, and freeze it for safety.

(I wonder what the churches did for sound, light and all that stuff yesterday. Especially the mega-church loud types. Did they have a forced contemplative service, because the band couldn't shake the roof? :) )

On the other hand, a three-day blackout would mean:

* No work. Even an hour of power-down has us twiddling out thumbs, wondering what to do. And yet it's pay week, which means the finance guys need their computers.

* Peace and quiet. No hum of electrical goods, no neighbourly music blasting forth, no vacuum cleaners going at midnight upstairs, no lights to shine through the windows and keep us awake.

* A chance to rediscover the non-electric art of entertainment. Uno, Pictionary, darts, snakes & ladders, long conversations without the TV providing distraction. No internet to make our eyes dry out from staring at the screen continuously.

* An adventure in cooking - no more rushed meals over lunch, instead a leisurely experimentation of what you can make on a braai (barbecue).

Well, lunch approached, so many of us fired up our braais and got cooking. Most folk were outdoors instead of in - washing cars, chatting with neighbours, gardening. Amazing what a difference it makes when there's nothing electric to do indoors.

And then, 12 hours after it went off, the power came back on. And all was back to normal. PS2 going overtime, computer back on, fridge restocking its cold air. Except that I chose a long, leisurely mid-afternoon bath with a book instead of time in front of an electric device.

So just what was the deal with the power? ESKOM (the monopolistic power suppliers) says "pollution combined with mist on the equipment". Yeah right... This morning's news said yet another problem at Koeberg, our nuclear-power reactor near Cape Town. The news also said the government is going to sit down with the power guys to find out exactly why our rolling blackouts and ongoing power problems are becoming more prevalent.

With all this, I wonder why no-one is seriously pushing for wind and solar power, why the government is still blocking more than encouraging innovation in that area. I wonder why there are solar panels lying idle in our maintenance department's shed, instead of installed and running where the entire system is already set up. I wonder if it will take a month's power collapse, a real emergency, for people to sit up and think of alternatives. Or if we'll all just go back to campfires and hand-cranked computers.