Category: ESKOM

Scary Power Failure

ESKOM makes life interesting!

Mum and I had an interesting experience when we went shopping last week. As we walked in, I said “Oh oh there’s load-shedding here!” I could hear the rumble of a generator.

“Don’t be silly Sibo,”mum responded, then stopped, cocked her head and reluctantly agreed.

I smirked a bit because mum hates to be wrong. There seemed to be no problems, so we grabbed a trolley and carried on into the store.

About half way through our shop, the noise of the generator suddenly died and the store went dark.

Dark is not a very accurate description.

It was so pitch black you could barely see your hand in front of your face. One never really thinks about the fact that there are no windows in big supermarkets—there’s a lot of artificial lighting in use.

There were a number of yelps and squeaks. I’m not a fan of the dark either so I sidled closer to mum and hung onto the trolley. Mum, on the other hand, clutched her bag tighter so that nobody could sneak up on her in the dark either.

After a few seconds, people hauled out their cell phones and the pitch black was pierced with random holes of light, which made it less scary. That torch app is pretty useful in a situation like that and if you don’t have one installed on your phone, maybe it’s a good idea to get one. They’re mostly free after all.

The situation didn’t last long. The genny hummed, the lights flickered back on, off and then on again. Everybody resumed their shopping.

“Let’s hurry up and get out of here Sibo,” mum picked up the pace of her shopping.

I was quite impressed with the way that everybody just stopped, stayed where they were and did not panic or do anything stupid. Although I wondered if the shop experienced losses with some dodgy people taking the opportunity to pop items into their handbags or pockets.

I was also curious about what happened at the tills. Did the whole system crash? Did they have to start ringing up everything again?

Being a nosey person, I asked, and the lady at the till said that their system just carried on like normal. It was only the lights that went out.

At least the power seems to have stabilised again… for the moment.

Sending love and light people.

Sibo

PESKOM

Power outages are a pain in the butt!

My friend Ginny wrote a modern day, uniquely South African fairy storybook, The Imaginaeries of Faerie Glen, based in a nature reserve in Pretoria. Amongst other things, she rips off ESKOM—calls them PESCOM in the book, which stands for the Pesky Fire-Fly Company and they provide light in the Glen. They are just as unreliable and irritating as our own electricity company in South Africa.

Until the app “Eskom se push” came out, it was nightmare trying to figure out which stage you were on and what number your house was on the grid. There was a horrible, unwieldy table that my Dad printed out and stuck together to make a chart. He laboriously highlighted each teensy numbered block that represented our area. And still we got it wrong. The stages would change or load-shedding would miraculously stop.

Nothing drives my mother crazier than having meticulously prepared for a power outage at a certain time—like at seven o’clock in the evening. Charged solar-power jars, dinner prepared long in advance, lanterns ready, cell phones 100% charged. Plus she’d reluctantly come to terms with missing her favourite programme that evening.

We finished dinner just before seven that evening and sat around the table, waiting for that ‘click’ when everything shuts down.

Nothing.

Mum went to the kitchen to double check the time on the oven clock. That’s a pain in the butt too – you know how many times I have reset those digi clocks in the last few weeks? It was only five minutes past the hour—there was still time for the municipality to hit the ‘off’ switch.

Still nothing.

At ten past seven my Dad declared that that power was going to stay on and Mum could watch her programme after all. I shuffled off to my room and read by light bulb, instead of the solar power jar I had all charged and ready.

The next night, we were on the same schedule—the power was due to go off at seven. Mum was more relaxed this time. She’d also stashed all the lamps back in the kitchen cupboard (my mum’s a neat freak you know). 

Pow! At exactly one minute past seven, the power went out. Mum howled with rage and Dad said naughty words because he’d forgotten to charge his cell phone and only had 5% battery power left.

You just never know, do you?

Sending light and love people.

Sibo