{"id":866,"date":"2019-02-20T07:52:11","date_gmt":"2019-02-20T07:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/?p=866"},"modified":"2020-03-20T12:27:36","modified_gmt":"2020-03-20T12:27:36","slug":"peskom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/2019\/02\/20\/peskom\/","title":{"rendered":"PESKOM"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

My friend Ginny wrote a modern day, uniquely South African fairy storybook, The Imaginaeries of Faerie Glen<\/a>, based in a nature reserve in Pretoria. Amongst other things, she rips off ESKOM\u2014calls 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Until the app \u201cEskom<\/a><\/g> <\/a>se<\/a><\/g> push<\/a>\u201d came out, it was nightmare<\/g> 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<\/g> we got it wrong. The stages would change or load-shedding would miraculously stop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Nothing drives\nmy mother crazier than having meticulously prepared for a power outage at a\ncertain time\u2014like at seven o\u2019clock in the evening. Charged solar-power jars,\ndinner prepared long in advance, lanterns ready, cell phones 100% charged. Plus\nshe\u2019d reluctantly come to terms with missing her favourite programme that\nevening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We finished\ndinner just before seven that evening and sat around the table, waiting for\nthat \u2018click\u2019 when everything shuts down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mum went to\nthe kitchen to double check the time on the oven clock. That\u2019s a pain in the\nbutt too \u2013 you know how many times I have reset those digi clocks in the last\nfew weeks? It was only five minutes past the hour\u2014there was still time for the\nmunicipality to hit the \u2018off\u2019 switch. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Still\nnothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At ten past\nseven my Dad declared that that power was going to stay on and Mum could watch\nher programme after all. I shuffled off to my room and read by light bulb,\ninstead of the solar power jar I had all charged and ready.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next\nnight, we were on the same schedule\u2014the power was due to go off at seven. Mum\nwas more relaxed this time. She\u2019d also stashed all the lamps back in the\nkitchen cupboard (my mum\u2019s a neat freak you know).  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pow! At\nexactly one minute past seven, the power went out. Mum howled with rage and Dad\nsaid naughty words because he\u2019d forgotten to charge his cell phone and only had\n5% battery power left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You just\nnever know, do you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sending light\nand love people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sibo<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Power outages are a pain in the butt!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[216,217,79,68],"tags":[219,218,220],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=866"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":868,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/866\/revisions\/868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.sibo.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}