I rushed to the shops today after several sessions of South Africa’s latest gift - rolling blackouts. I rushed…
My intentions were clear - to buy any serviceable device or system to end my pain, the pain of a dark house in a cul de sac, in a relatively shady area. Haha.
So, the gains - A volcanic gel stove. I kid you not. Hehe, it’s like hot lava on fire. Brilliant!
And an UPS system that’ll keep my iPad and router up (Apple is a rip off. I promise)
And a selection of solar lamps.
The net result is that I’m now extremely poor. YES POOR! It cost a damn bomb.
But the upside is that I can post this post. I can cook instead of buying overpriced, less than satisfactory takeaways.
Damn, Eskom (our power utility) which should be renamed Eskimo (because it’s cold and dark here, baby). Damn Eskom!
The lights go out, and they’re supposed to stay off for 2-4 hours at a time, but instead they fail for two entire days.
The most enlightening( haha) thing, however, is that the people I've contacted to give us a quote on offgrid solar are, TOO BUSY TO REPLY ( the system costs about $25 000, which just goes to show).
South Africans are stressing, left, right and in the proverbial center of this crisis. But the icing on the top is that they just put our costs up by 32%, the cheek is so monumental that nobody can think of a single thing to say.
Cheers to all the suffering peeps...TIP- BUY A VOLCANIC GEL STOVE!