Ever heard of load shedding???

Everywhere around the world people have heard of Earth Hour.  Switching of all your lights for one whole hour once a year.  Well if you live in South Africa, you don’t really have a choice in switching off your power as the electricity supplier does it for you… All the time.

As wonderful as that might sound, this is not for some noble reason such as helping to save the planet or to bring awareness about some fantastic cause.  It’s because the electricity supplier in South Africa can’t keep up with the demand.  And because the maintenance on the power stations are so poor that stuff breaks… All the time.

You might think that this is wonderful, but I can tell you from experience that it is scary, inconvenient and not always very pleasant.  Sure, I love the candle light romance idea, but after three evenings of having my power off during the time when I normally come home and make supper, have a shower and finally get to watch a little television. I am just slightly fed up. Having had supper very late the one night, not having supper ready and having to go out and buy supper (when the whole neighborhood is dunked in darkness and every desperate hungry person is streaming to any place with a generator to provide supper for their families), and tonight again… Having to wait till the power goes back on to try and make a quick supper for a hungry husband.  

There are always those rumors going around about the power stations not being able to keep up, and that there is the possibility that the power could go out for days, or even weeks.  Have you ever thought about what that would be like… I have, I have had to, because it’s a real possibility. People tend to giggle behind their hands for these so called doomsday preppers, but not all of them are preparing for a zombie apocalypse.  Even us as a relatively normal houshold have started our little emergency kit.  Things like water, candles, canned food.

You see, the problem is not the power going out, it’s what happens when it does go out, and people start getting desperate.  No electricity, no atm’s to draw money from, no credit card facilities. No way to buy or make food if you don’t have the money to afford it. 

Just let that sink in.  No electricity doesn’t just mean no electricity.  It means hungry desperate cold people, those people will like any normal human being, fight by any means necessary to satisfy their basic needs to survive, they will damage, break, steal and even kill if it meant staying alive. If your loved ones were hungry, cold or threatened in any way, wouldn’t you? 

 

The inhumanity of man

I have been quiet for a while, but in my absence I have been following the news on Syria and the chemical weapons attack that happened in August.  I could not believe my ears or my eyes for that matter, and I was shocked to my core at the massacre that occurred.  I have seen multiple videos of the attack, children dying or dead, people having seizures and foaming at the mouth, dozens of doctors trying in vain to resuscitate people.  Hundreds of people lying on the floor because there are just too many.  In one video, a little girl was being carried around, dead, she was being held up and shown to the video camera, her head bobbing around, her eyes open but unseeing.  I can hardly imagine the terror and pain the victims of this attack must have felt.  I believe that those deeds cannot go unpunished.  Whoever was responsible must pay.  You must have no heart or conscience to do that to your own people.  How can you kill innocent women and children, people who have nothing to do with your war, people that deserve a chance at life but was not given that chance.  How do u live with yourself knowing that you are a monster.  I really hope action will be taken.  And all those people around the world that say that it is not their war and that Syria must take care of its own…  How can you idly stand by while people are being slaughtered.  What if it was your child and your country… would u still then think a country must take care of its own, will you then accept when help is not given to you in your time of need, would you accept your family, friends and children suffering, dying or dead, broken, seizing and foaming on the floor…  Will you then still agree that others should not interfere.  How many others have to die?  When you reflect back, can you really just sit there and do nothing…