Do You Have Lights
I was in Ghana and one of things I experienced were the power cuts. Technical reasons were given from above and we had to grin and bear it.
We had 12 hours off during the day and 12 hours off during the night on alternate days sometimes every two days. Now I hear its going to 24 hours off at a time every two days. The common phrase now is “do you have lights?”.
Most people have an electricity schedule stuck up somewhere in their house or office but it is not always accurate. The official term for this is “Load Shedding” but when the lights go out unexpectedly on your day on it is called “Lights Off”. We call each other and ask is it load shedding or lights out… Now we all rush to do ironing, cooking, emailing and anything that uses electricity before the load shedding and its funny to see people rushing home cos lights will come on at 6pm.
We get up at 4am to do things before lights go out at 6am. Freezers and fridges are almost empty and most people have just switched them off cos the cost of repairing a damaged motor is not realistic. We all resort to eating meals cooked daily (no more cooking in bulk and freezing). Which has made things more expensive for everyone. The old box iron - an iron made of heavy metal which opens up for you to put hot coals in has made a come back. The grinding stone which was replaced by the blender is also resurfacing and people are just managing and adjusting to the situation.
Who do you complain to? Everyone is going through it and the in thing now is to have a generator. Conversations are geared to how many KV you have, and, how much they cost and whether diesel is better than petrol… If you want to visit someone in the evening you ask “Do you have lights”. The price of candles have risen and the size of them have shrunk. Some one always seems to make a profit out of misery.
Different areas of the same town rotate so you find people rushing to Zone A to browse in a cafe and later on rushing to Zone B to continue browsing… I have walked across the road to a friend to do my ironing when i got caught and she has come to blend her vegetables carrying a pot of food across the road. No one is surprised by anything any more. Life goes on. Much as it is annoying and causing many to lose business income, it has spiced up life and made people laugh at the nonsense going on around them… I wonder how many babies would be born nine months from the load shedding.
My question is… with all the sunshine why isn’t solar made more available to the country? Why hasn’t someone found a way to make solar panels cheaper for all to be able to afford them and why hasn’t the government had the foresight to see that the levels of the dam were dropping over the past years, so something should be done fast. It is human nature at its worst, wait until the crisis before reacting rather than preventing the crisis to happen in the first place
To Solar or not to solar… that is the question
I started writing when I was young but it was not until 2002 after my husband’s death that I seriously started poetry articles and short stories as a serious hobby which I could develop. I have had some of my poetry and articles published in magazines. I am a motivational speaker, have attended many seminars on self empowerment and have walked on fire during the Unleash the fire within seminar held by Anthony Robbins. I have enough poems ready for publishing and I am also writing a novel and a film script. I live between Ghana and the UK and enjoy putting down my experiences as they happen. I love life and believe time is too short to do nothing and that all should try to leave a mark on this earth before we finally go.
Tags: lightsoff, loadshedding, Noelectricity, Powercuts