Load-Shedding Costs --- and Benefits

We learned a new word living in South Africa this time: load-shedding. 

Electricity supply is not keeping up with demand in South Africa.  So, this time (unlike 2012), we experienced frequent power outages.  Load-shedding is the word used here for rolling power outages that occur in different parts of the city – two hours at a shot.  They are somewhat planned.  Schedules are announced.   Sometimes posted schedules are accurate; sometimes not.  So you’re never quite sure when load-shedding is going to hit.

Of course, many jokes circulated about load-shedding.  My favorite was this one.  Radio Announcer:  I have some good news and some bad news.  First, the bad news:  “The shit is going to hit the fan.”   Now, the good news:  “Because of load-shedding, the fan will not be running.”

Load-shedding happened all semester.  One of our students, Betsy King, became the load-shedding expert.  If you needed to know what the announced power outage schedule was on any day, you only needed to ask her.

High Costs of Load-shedding.  As exam week and due dates for class papers loomed, you could hear the groans swell whenever the power went out.  University classes would be canceled.  And, businesses were highly affected.  Imagine being a restaurant – and frequently having to shut down for hours.

A piece of Aya's work

One person we knew was hit disproportionately hard.  You may remember our friend – Aya – who lives in New Brighton township and is a potter.  We visited her home studio several times in 2012 – and again this year.  She uses an electric kiln to fire her pottery.  And, living in the township means that her electricity outages were sometimes even more frequent.   Imagine losing not only two hours of electricity, but a whole kiln of your livelihood.  Sometimes she would lose up to two week’s worth of her work.

Jim,  Aya, Connie, and Aya's sister

Unexpected Benefits of Load-shedding.  When our students first heard that wifi was spotty here and that there would be no electricity for hours at a time, their first reaction was … panic!  As Taylor Haag put it so eloquently:  “We’re gonna die!”   But, starting from the very first outage, load-shedding turned out to have its advantages. 

The students would gather in someone’s candle-lit room and tell each other life stories.  They’d sing. They’d play box games.  Sometimes, when the lights came back on, they’d groan and turn the lights back out again!  Many have talked about the value of being ‘un-plugged’ from their phones, computers, Facebook – and being really present HERE.   A few are talking about artificially creating a “load-shedding” night once a month when they get back home.    I hope they do it!

Good-Byes and Hellos

Today - May 22 - we saw the second large contingent of students off to their flights home.  The semester's over and they are heading back to the USA - to family, friends and summer jobs.  Quiet tears were shed.  Big hugs were given.  By Sunday, all but one of the students will have left Port Elizabeth.

It seems surreal to be waving Good-bye and packing up the items our students leave behind for an entirely unknown group of Bennies and Johnnies who will come next year.  Didn’t we just unpack all this stuff? 

Jim and I arrived Port Elizabeth back on January 25.^th  It was sunny!  I remember that.   We smiled as we unpacked into our same, old familiar flat.  When we got hungry, we would take a break and run to Nando’s (a fast food Portuguese restaurant) for chicken with hot peri-peri sauce, followed by Magnum ice cream bars from the service station to eat on the walk home.  (You have to have both of these sometime in your lives!)  And through our window of Langerry Flats, we could hear the waves of the Indian Ocean and occasionally spot a school of dolphins playing amongst them.   

As we started making our way around our old haunts in PE, people remembered us!  We were greeted with big hugs and warm smiles everywhere we turned. 

Nuala and Jim

For example, there was Nuala Jansen.  When we were first here in 2012, Nuala was our lifeline - the first person we called - whenever we needed anything.  While no longer with NMMU, hers was one of the first friendly voices on the phone asking us: “Would we like to come over to her house for a braai?”  Of course we said yes.   She invited several people whom we knew.  Eugene, her husband, manned the meat and toasted cheese sandwiches on the outdoor braai.  Mona made stiff pap (maize meal cooked until quite firm) with spicy chakalaka on top.  Bev tossed the salad.

We sat and talked into the evening.  It was nice being able to say “Hello Again” and be warmly received.

Hi!  I'm Anga.

The first students arrived on Saturday, January 31.  And that very first night, as Joe Buysse sat in his room, a young man wearing a St. John’s sweatshirt walked right in, sat down, and said, “Hi.  I’m Anga!”   Joe didn’t recognize the face, but the name was famous.  Anga has been a friend of the St. John’s/St. Ben’s students each year since 2010.   He always seems to know the moment we land in town and shows up immediately.   This year was no exception.

Anga is a great resource as he introduces our students to safe places and his other South African friends.  One of these years, he’s going to outgrow us.  But, there’s a rumor that his younger brother is planning to become Anga, Junior --- carrying on the tradition maybe as soon as next year. 

There’s an old saying that you shouldn’t be sad to say ‘Good-bye’ as it would mean you were sad that you said ‘Hello.’   I don’t know about that, but I do know that we’ll always cherish the “Hellos” we received in Port Elizabeth.

Jo-Burg

The yellow hills surrounding Jo-Burg

Very few people in South Africa ever say the entire name of Johannesburg.  It is simply Jo-Burg.  We decided to stop, as we hadn’t been here last time.  Several of our 2012 students came – and highly recommended that we come.

I didn’t know that – like Denver - Jo-Burg is also a “mile high city” as it is 6000 feet above sea level.  That doesn’t mean that it looks high.  The “mountains” that surround Jo-Burg are all manmade, created from the dirt removed when gold was mined from the deep.  One interesting little tidbit, is that with the price of gold these days – and new technologies, the hills surrounding Jo-Burg are being dug up again to find the last little bits of gold that may have been left in these piled up soils.

Jo-Burg is a newer city than I would have thought.  It was founded with that first gold discovery in 1886.  Before that date, there were only five farms here, no trees, and primarily grasslands.  Today, it is a very green, treed city.  

During our few days of being a tourist in Jo-Burg, we went to Nelson Madela’s house, the Hector Pieterson memorial, and the Apartheid Museum.   All are to be recommended.

Nelson’s house: 8115 in Orlando West

Under the Forced Removal Act of the Apartheid government, many black people living in what were deemed to be white areas were forcibly removed from where they had been living and sent to “townships” that were created for their race.  Nelson’s house is in one such township.  We visited his house at 8115 Orlando West, Soweto.  It was a simple brick, two room house.

A photo of Nelson burning his pass book

Nelson burned it here.

During the time he lived here, every black and colored South African had to carry an ID card that allowed them to visit white areas for only certain times/reasons.  They also had to have their pass card on their person at all time, and were subject to police checks and punishments if they did not.  It was at this address where Nelson burned his “pass” card in protest (in the back yard where Jim is standing).   

Nelson also came "home" to this address when he was released from his imprisonment in 1990 after 27 years of prison.  

Interestingly, I did learn that while this address is always referred to as Nelson Mandela’s house, it was actually Evelyn’s – his first wife’s.  

Hector Pieterson’s Memorial.   This is a rather small, great museum that helps us to remember the shooting of school children who were peacefully protesting a new law that all their courses had to be taught only in Afrikaans (meaning that many black children would fail to pass).  Hector Pieterson was one of the first killed that day in 1976.  (I am always saddened when these critical events took place during my lifetime, but I remained either ignorant or silent.)  

When a newspaper published a photograph by Sam Nzima of the dying Hector being carried by a fellow student, the photo circled the world and became an iconic image that brought international attention to the Soweto uprising.   Most readers will recognize and remember this photo.  Google it!  Hector was 13 years old when he was killed.

  

As a black, you walk by the mountains of rock
moved by black labor in the gold mines.

The Apartheid Musuem.   A short blog post will never do this museum justice.  Jim and I thought we’d probably spend about two hours here.  We ended staying over four hours - and still did not see it all!   One immediate experience that ‘hits’ you is your admission ticket.  You are randomly given a white, black, or colored ticket – and you enter through different doors depending on your race.  Once you enter, what you see and experience is also different.  This lasted a relatively short time.  In a way, I wish this part had lasted even longer.  It was a powerful way to present what results from a happenstance of birth.

Coming home to South Africa

Arriving in Johannesburg back on January 25th felt great!  Prior to coming to South Africa in 2012, a friend of mine said to me, “Once you’ve been to South Africa, you’ll always be a little homesick for it.”  And, that’s been true for us.  Arriving in South Africa felt as if we were coming back to our second “home.”

I smiled as I experienced each of the “little things" that I had forgotten – such as people saying “pleasure” in response to a thank you, or being called “Mama” as an respectful rather than a wolfish comment, or as I rented the car and was the sole legal driver – walking to the right hand door to get behind the wheel, shifting with my left hand, and carefully navigating through the “robots” as I drove away from the airport in the left lane.

Our guesthouse host

It felt great being back in South African sunshine, blue skies and great air.  We stayed at a wonderful guesthouse for our first four days – with gorgeous gardens and super breakfasts.  (I have yet to stay at a guesthouse or B and B in South Africa that hasn’t been charming.  Sometime I’d love to do a non-time limited road trip across South Africa, stopping at B & B’s as I went.)

Our host spoke Afrikaans as his first language, and learned his fluent English through reading literature.  He was a font of knowledge about the area.  I was so happy to hear how positive he was for the future of South Africa, and how well he feels the country has done in improving race relations.  As one “proof point,” he cited one statistic saying that over 300,000 whites who fled South Africa after it became a full democracy returned last year and plan to stay.   

My only heartbreak:  When I unpacked my suitcase, I found my jewelry had been stolen from my checked luggage.  It was my own dumb fault for not hand carrying it.  Lost were some of my favorite things, including the jewelry I wore to Emily’s wedding, the blue sapphire earrings that had just been handmade for me in Myanmar, my only gold chain that Jim gave me long ago, and the one piece of costume jewelry I had of my mother’s.