Load shedding has become an ordinary occurrence since January 2008. When Eskom contentiously introduced rolling blackouts on a rotating schedule, arms went up, profanity spewed, Facebook rants riddled timelines and corruption allegations announced.
Now, 12 years later, we no longer allow the veins to pop in our redden faces. We simply light the candles, curse Eskom, and order in.
Refusing to accept our newly vexed livelihood, our perceptive entrepreneurs pulled out Excalibur and the sword in the stone and revealing our weapon of resilience: generators.
We had a solution but when the 2010 World Cup began to loom around the corner, we needed to dramatically up scale. The inherent fear and possibility of blackouts during games would have been more embarrassing than the Bok’s heinous defeat to Ireland in 2006.
Once knowing we were secured with power, waving of flags began and excitement increased.
But so, did ticket prices.
Even though Eskom planned for the Messis’ and Ronaldos, darkness was still scheduled to the suburbs. Refusing to miss the opening goal and well-rehearsed dance from Bafana Bafana we bought our tickets and stocked up the Black Labels.
The buying of tickets due to Eskom’s lack of management truly saddened me.
When I bought mine, I was informed that it had to hand it over to my grand old man since ‘he might not witness another world cup’… Fair enough. But.
The rogue confused the dates.
I had a dark TV.
I missed the game.
Best R973 I ever spent.
In the end, it was a fantastic year for our country, we were united, and the economy boomed. Best of all, South Africa is now one of the biggest markets for diesel generator parts in Africa. This engineering marketplace has provided several companies to offer various generators at different capacities and features.
You must agree how incredible the disastrous and infuriating act of load shedding could be mixed with a football competition and produce a change to thousands of South Africans and their livelihoods. It has launched multiple micro-businesses into our economic monopoly and not just the supply of the humming machine, but the spare parts, servicing, and other businesses. You cannot deny that load shedding has changed everything. It might be a negative ordinary to some, but it is also an extraordinary positive for others.
So, food for thought, next time, when you relight your exhausted candles, recall a quote of Richard Evan’s: it is often in the darkest skies that we see the brightest stars.
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