Making the Best of Load Shedding v2

Now this may be a foreign concept to readers in other countries (as most of my readership recently are from the US and Canada) but it ZA it is so real. Load shedding is like a power “sharing” scheme brought in by our monopolized power supplier Eskom. They don't or didn't, depends on their excuse, make provisions for our growing power supply. That means in winter we have some neighbourhoods have power and others don't for a few to many hours. (We also don't have gas as much as in other countries. Ovens, stoves and water heaters/ geysers are all electricity. When the power goes off you sit with your finger in your bum)

So real that we have memes

This post is born from an unfortunate instance. To avoid making this a soap box for a rant about the government, I'll just say persons stole our power cables. (This happens EVERYDAY in ZA!!!) And it sounds like this time they weren't lucky to walk away. (Yes some survive pulling out LIVE POWER CABLES).

But again, looking at the good side (if there is a good side to someone paying for stealing power cables with their life) here is my top things to have a good load-shedding experience. (you can use this if your power is unreliable as well):

Get a cool bag to keep everything together and keep it in a place where it's easy to access in the dark. This is what I call my Mermaid bag that I got for R20 at Typo. It's the 'Not Just a Tote Bag' from the #cottononfoundation.

Any LED battery powered light is cool for immediate light. I have a head lamp but there are many other options like camp lights or even a normal flash light.

Keep a fresh box of candles in the bag with a candle holder (I use a clean Cheese spread jar) and matches or a lighter. Bonus tip: Have a candle burning in the bathroom. Then you don't have to walk around with a candle like and old timey person and then you burn your hair or the house down.

Especially now with winter approaching it's a must to have a blanket for the cooler nights.

Easy snacks are a must because chances are a power outage will happen over a time you want to cook. That is the law. Chips and bars are good. If you are not going to have people sneaking bites, some biltong. Dried fruit and nuts are cool too. Bonus tip: Don't open the fridge and freezer too much. Things will warm up and defrost faster.

Also have a charged power bank for your phone. Its not like back in the day where everyone had a landline that has it's own power. Get cool here atSuperbalist or here at Takealot. Bonus tip: Stuck with out a charge? Most cars or car radios have a USB port. Or switch your phone the Ultra power saving mode. It stretches your battery power twice as far (if not more as it limits some of it's apps)

Pack in some power-less activities like a pack of cards. Battle ships are also good. I was stuck without power alone and group activities are impossible (my dogs didn't want to participate in Uno as it might destroy our friend ship #takefourcards) so I pulled out my colouring book. Here is my previous post that has activities that don't involve unfriending.

I hope this post is helpful as Eskom executives' multimillion Rand bonuses. And not their helpline.

é