South Africa - part 2

I noticed during my quick trip to South Africa was that while I clearly was not a tourist I could look at some things from a more ‘touristic’ point of view. Things that the locals have to live with every single day were things I could just look at and smile. Cause, you know, I don’t have to deal with the bad service, or terrible roads, or lack of common decency.  Also, I know for a fact that you can have the same experience in Belgium, or anywhere in the world for that matter. I just chose not to focus on those things.

The one thing that was totally unavoidable thought was the load shedding. Sure I had heard of it from everyone but this time I actually experienced it. Let me tell you, I can see why people get, to put it plainly, pissed off about it.

I have a very good friend Val who went to high school with me. We weren’t such great friends in high school but over the last couple of years we have kept in contact and email and call each other about once a week.  So, on the Wednesday we had agreed to meet up and he would buy me a nice lunch.

I took the very convenient Gautrain to Centurion where he picked me up.

The Gautrain is South Africa’s first high speed train connection between Pretoria and Johannesburg (including the airport). It has been operational since 8 June 2010.

It was quite funny to see the people on board’s reaction. Some of them were using it for the first time and taking photos and calling their fiends and family saying ‘guess where I am?’

A couple of them even asked me where they had to switch to get on to the airport line, at which point I had to tell them that it was also a first time for me. ‘Wow, are you loving it?’ ‘Well’ I had to reply, ‘I actually live in Europe so high speed trains are nothing new for me’. I did, however, mention how super impressed I was at how clean it all was. And it really was.

But I’m getting off topic.

So, my friend Val and his four boys picked me up outside the train station and took me for lunch to Irene farm. It was my first time there and I loved it! 

According to the boys this is not the most friendly of swans

My friend Val with his four boys

On the way there I noticed that none of the traffic lights were working … what’s that about I asked. Load shedding.

When we got to Irene farm we were told that they were without electricity and could offer us something to drink but no food.

The boys were happy enough with that and raced off to go explore while Val & I sat catching up. Finally the boys all came back saying they were starving and could we go get some pizza somewhere. No problem ... or wait problem … we needed to pay for the drinks but:

1. no electricity meant no payments by card
2. Val didn’t have cash on him … they usually don’t accept cash and he knows this cause they go there often

Not to worry, I had cash on me and managed to count out the exact amount (they also couldn’t give any change).

We decided to go try our luck at the Irene Mall. They also didn’t have any electricity but we were able to get some pizza for the kids and Val was able to get cash from one of the grocery stores.

Not even the cell phone towers were working which was really strange since they don’t need electricity.

My sister-in-law is a 5^th year med-student and she said that the hospitals have generators but that they are used for essential services only. This meant that none of the electric door locks were working. She was on-call that night and they couldn’t lock the door of the on-call room or lock off any of the wards which usually are ‘locked down’.

As developed as South Africa is the cracks are starting to show. Load shedding like this is becoming quite the norm which is really worrying since the government doesn’t seem to be overly concerned about it.