Power Struggles

The power is off. Again. Frankly, I’m gatvol. It’s understandable that the country’s power supplier, PSC (the non-performer formerly known as NEPA), can’t keep up with the demand. Hell, they have about one third of Eskom’s generating capacity and about three times as many people to service. That means you get, on average, about four hours’ supply per day, the times and uninterrupted duration of which are apparently dictated at random. So, every dwelling and workplace worth its salt has its own generator. Ours is a big beast about the size of a Smart car. And that’s where the trouble started - last weekend it blew as the not-so-Smart guy tasked with keeping an eye on it forgot to top up the oil and also failed to notice that a fan belt had gone, so the thing not only overheated, it ran the battery flat. Miraculously, it didn’t seize as well. It was late Sunday before a repairman could be found; late Monday before he finally arrived. 

All went well until Saturday, when a power surge blew our modem (and the wireless interweb connection with it). Yesterday another power spike popped half the lights in the studio and, by midnight, the municipal power was fluctuating so badly that I felt I was in a Stephen King movie, lights dimming and flaring, air conditioners switching on and off as if by an unseen hand, before everything finally faded and died. Unbeknownst to me, the water pump also took a direct hit. We have a borehole, so no pump equals no water pressure equals no water this morning. 

Feeling sticky and grumpy, I was put through the hoops today – rushed late from one meeting in Victoria Island to be yanked out of the second one (45 minutes in traffic from Ipapa) to attend another at the gilded MAT building back on Victoria Island. In the interim, an electrician was called in to fix the problem. Which he almost did. The water was flowing again by lunchtime and the interweb was back in business by 6pm. Then the generator started playing up, or, more accurately, stopped playing along. After half a dozen aborted start-ups that lasted from 5 minutes to zero minutes over a 20-minute period, we were left in darkness. Apparently a short circuit (how this was divined without the benefit of a search escapes me). Anyway, I’m stuck till tomorrow with no power (unless PSC/NEPA, on a whim, grants us some juice), with the happy prospect of being woken by the heat already building in the room, just in time for a cold shower (or possibly none). The mozzies are also getting more active, with no refrigerated air to cool their ardour, so I’ll sign off now. I’m hoping that the stench of the Peaceful Sleep I’m slathered in will buy me enough time to escape to Dreamland before they move in en masse.