HAKHULA GETSI !
- 26/6/2007 <--Prev : Next-->
Power Cuts !!
I suppose there is never an ideal time for a power cut. It doesn't matter what time of day or night it is a darn nuisance.
Sometimes more s than others obviously but one must try and see the funny side of it all or one might just find a length of flex and contemplate all sorts of bad thoughts.
Perhaps the worst time for a power cut is when one is happily ensconced in the bath with a good book but without a candle and a box of matches.
Perhaps the second worst time is when there is a quiche in the oven for the "Drinking Club with the Bridge Problem Girls."
Then of course there is the power cut that occurs when one is heading for ones favourite hair stylist/dentist/podiatrist (for an appointment that one has waited for for three months) and the electric gate will not open !!
The Ex-Farmers Wives undoubtedly have the edge over the townies in the power cut stakes, because they grew up with tilly lamps and generators and I am sure the Farmers Wives who now live in town, must chortle at the sight of some of us during this particularly baneful aspect of life in the Third World.
Picture Yours Truly when the lights go out. Totally night blind, stumbling for the torch, shins bleeding, knee bruised, I eventually get hold of and light a candle, and head for the garage where the generator lives in tandem with the doggies.
It aint easy manoeuvring the dogs beds, the bikes the dogs water bowl and the dogs dinner without mishap. It takes Seven steps to turn on this blessed nosy air pollution machine, and all seven steps are carefully annotated but not easy to ready by candlelight.
Picture the delight when on step number seven the diesel engine splutters into life and then picture the panic when it runs out of diesel seven seconds after touchdown !!
Now the diesel lives in the shed at the bottom of the garden, and so a sortie must be made, via candlelight to find the torch which is always mysteriously missing.
Diesel secured after thirty minutes of fumbling, shoes drenched in fuel, woolies reeking (diesel has a horrid habit of impermeating everything within a hundred miles, and hey presto we have lights just in time for the power to come back on again !!
Now power cuts are irritating to say the least but what about those folk who actually have to make a living ? I think here of my dear friend Colin who has to teach "Corel-draw by Candlelight" my friend Maureen who teaches "Maths by Matches" Spare a thought for the lovely lasses at Platinum who have to undertake "Platinum by Paraffin " !!
Think of those stalwart folk in Chimanimani who run sawmills - absolutely no way on Gods earth to run a sawmill without Getsi !!
Industrialists, Colleges, Schools and businesses are all taking incredible strain. Our electrical appliances are going down the tube literally with the power surges, on and off (more off than on !!)
Businesses have no orders as their switchboards cannot operate, technologically advanced businesses are totally hamstrung as the internet servers are not working for the best part of the day. The CBD seems to be particularly hard hit and there is chaos in town daily as the traffic lights do not work, banks have no power so folk got no money !!
Supermarket managers have taken to taking their costly produce home with them as freezer failure is resulting in hideous financial losses, and it takes a brave shopper to buy produce that might possibly have frozen and thawed several times in the space of a week !!
Me !! I stick to tinned and fresh food these days, tummies have been behaving badly all over town, and those sausages in the freezer look pretty suspect if you ask me !!
