Ask a Zimbabwean for tips on power cuts

What an incredible fuss you South Africans make about a few power cuts.
I
happened to lie down next to my battery-operated satellite radio for a
nap
this week after the season's only two hours of summer whacked me out. I
heard the likeable David O'Sullivan sounding unlikeable. Okay. He was
in a
rage, so angry he sounded as though he might burst an artery, or the
membrane holding his brain in place. About Eskom. I couldn't believe my
ears. As far as I can remember, in this past week there were only about
six
cuts, and none longer than five hours. Same thing at the
pharmacy: moan, moan, moan. Then it struck me - for the first time in
my
life I had really useful knowledge. I do know about electricity cuts
and
what to do about them. I know about boilers, paraffin fridges, wicks
and
lighting the lamps by pumping them hard at 5.30pm.

Please, South African householders, unless you live on more than an
acre,
don't get a generator. There will be murder in the streets of
Parkhurst, the
Berea in Durban and Obs in Cape Town if home owners on tiny bits of
land all
have generators farting rhythmically through long days and dark nights.
Even
small generators use 1 litre of diesel per hour. And they get stolen
easily
unless cemented in and you need monster ones to do fridges and stoves.
Leave
generators to Raymond Ackerman and his ilk. First rule for survival:
get a
solar panel on the roof, which is connected to an especially large car
battery in your house, which is then attached to an inverter, which in
turn
has a switch that lights up the world. This system keeps a TV, DSTV
encoder,
DVD player, mobile and laptop chargers going. And it costs nothing to
run.
The bigger the battery, the more lights. (Ditch desktop computers
today.) It
doesn't do fridges (more about fridges later) and it doesn't do
electric
stoves.

Go for gas. Mozambique has 300 years of gas, and the ANC government -
even
though it chose to do the arms deal instead of electricity - did put in
a
pipeline for gas from Mozambique. If you live in the older suburbs of
Johannesburg phone up the angels (seriously) at eGoli Gas and they will
look
on the map to see if you have a gas pipe in your street. If you have,
then
get connected. Gas geysers also work at a fraction of the cost of
electricity if you don't go for solar-heated water. Refrigerators are
another thing altogether. If you keep the doors shut, a tall one will
keep
food from going off during a power cut of about 30 hours. A deep freeze
lasts about 2,5 days if you don't open it. Longer than that and the
food
goes off. After all, you can shop daily in South Africa. Raymond
Ackerman is
going to keep the generators running.

Most Zimbabwe-owned supermarkets shut down during power cuts. Only
foreign-connected ones such as Spar have generators, or those owned by
Zanu
PF chefs (political elite), as they get cheap fuel. You must conserve
power.
You have a chance to do this because you still do have commerce and
industry. We lost our industry over the past few years, so that sector
can't
really help much. We have more or less given up mining. Except, except,
and
think about this: your mining houses can buy power with foreign
currency
directly from Cahora Bassa and pay in US dollars, as they are doing in
Zimbabwe now. It is a bit more expensive than Eskom, but it keeps the
platinum pouring out. We also don't have any robots left in our
streets, and
little traffic, so we don't have the kind of traffic jams I saw along
Jan
Smuts Avenue in Jo'burg on Thursday during a power cut.

We don't kill each other in fuel queues, and we don't have road rage as
our
roads are mostly gone. Nor do we kill each other in banks, even when
there
is no money there, or in supermarkets. Well, only very, very
occasionally,
and only once, over sugar and that was in Bulawayo, which is very far
from
town. So bear up, improvise and go get the solar, inverter, battery
alternatives, and gas. And you will all survive until you have enough
new
power sources within eight years, so I hear, and you are not going to
be
nearly as short of foreign currency as Zim, so can import some power.
But
Zimbabwe will recover sooner than South Africa, because our population
is in
Hillbrow.