Friday 18 January 2008

Cut it out already!

When a Zimbabwean national tells you: "Everything is fucked up," and he is not speaking about his home country but rather the electricity problem in South Africa well then, things are dismal.

Case in point - these power cuts. Eskom calls it 'load shedding' - what a very flowery way to say we have rolling blackouts. I am not sure how bad it is nationally, but Johannesburg is a disaster.

It all started in the second half of last year when they occasionally cut off power, maybe once or twice a week at night because they did not have the capacity. Gradually it became more and more often (different reasons for the lack of capacity at each time) and for these past eight days it has been everyday numerous times a day, each blackout lasting two to three hours.

I tried to go shopping but I had to abruptly stop. I tried to meet my deadlines early, but could not...my work flow was interrupted more times than I care to mention. I tried to publish this post on other occasions, but the electricity got cut. Traffic is a nightmare. You would not even want your mortal enemy caught in it.

There was an intensive campaign recently to educate people how to use less power, like switching off your geyser for example when it is not in use. I am sure the message hit home so why are we in this position?

I have now resorted to doing my work at night - it is now 2:33am - and to mail it through to my editors. Might as well do it now when there is power to do so.

We have a World Cup Soccer in 2010 and they say this problem could last for the next eight years! For the love of everything pink, can Eskom just do something already? Can they just team up with the necessary stakeholders and get their act together? C'mon this ain't the effing Dark Ages! Unless these guys want to take us back there.

10 comments:

My dartboard said...

well you know how i feel about them. we have one everyday. and i can only imagine what's it's done to some of our equipment. luckily our pcs have ups units but that's not the point. i think it's rubbish as es-kon tries to push prices up. how did no one see this coming?

i cant believe you used the f word.


/me smiles.

i'm not alone.

Prixie said...

LMAO....well, I am royally pissed off and when that happens I put trunk drivers and sailors to shame. One never really realises what an integral part technology plays in our lifestyle - both for work and play till they take it from us.

Unknown said...

Thanks for coming by and leaving a comment.

I understand what you are going through. Although I love living in the backwoods of Southern Ohio up on this mountain top, when it rains, snows or the wind blows we can expect the power to go out. I can not tell you how many times I have been thankful for the fact that we heat with wood, especially this time of year. I would hate to put all my eggs in one basket, have a total electric home and then have the power go out.

Hope they get their act together and make life a little easier on you.

Anonymous said...

that's what u get for living in a THIRD world country!

Anonymous said...

Hey!...What you mean third world aonymous? SA has both First World and Third World elements! I'd hardly call SA third world.

Anyways. Prixie, it would seem that Jozi has it much worse than CT. At least the area I live in has not been that poorly affected, we've had 1 cut this week that I know of. But interestingly the Cape times reported that it was mostly the poor areas of CT that was affected for prolonged time.

The Conspiracy theorist in me is working overtime.....

singlewheatfemale said...

WAYYYY COOL PAGE U HAVE HERE PRIYA!! :D keep zat up....
and me thinks u write in all awesomeness....

Prixie said...

jo and JD: Thank you for empathising.

Anon: If you knew anything about this country, you should know it is a developing one which means we have very first world elements as well as third world elements.

SG: Thanks for setting the record straight with Anon. My conspiracy theories are fluttering in my head, but they are different from yours. And infact, both the poor and rich surburbs were hit with cuts so...I think it is a distraction tactic but for what?! Not sure exactly.

SWF: thank you much ;p

liam said...

hey, even california has rolling blackouts. this earth is desperately in need of some alternative energy. the gubment incredulously subsidizes oil companies here. can we get a little more in terms of innovation subsidies? please?

My dartboard said...

what's so mind boggling is that we're all just content to sit back and accept this as if it were normal. any tacticiam knows, in a war, take out the infrastructure. water, electricity, communications. now there's a conspiracy theory to toss at weed smoking philosophy students.

Prixie said...

liam: hear hear! or evenalternative sources of energy! eco friendly please!

o.h: those are percisely my thoughts. whatever happened to that spirit during the apartheid days when there were heores? or at least people who stood up and said: "this is not right!" from your comments, make me wonder what war is there? something just below the surface?