While power outages are something that are pretty familiar to many people around the world, even in countries like the United States, few countries have the same experience as South Africa, whose power crisis has become an international scandal. Given the immense resources that South Africa possesses, including high-quality coal and a powerful infrastructure built by pre-1994 governments that has (sadly) been allowed to go to seed due to corruption, South Africa has periods of load-shedding on a daily basis where the power goes out and where those businesses that wish to operate at all during such times have to run their own generators to handle essential functions while the power is out.

In the hotel we are staying at for the Feast of Tabernacles, there are sheets in the elevators that tell us the load shedding schedule for three days at a time or so. At least from what I can see, there are consistent times that seem to be chosen for load-shedding. Sometimes the schedule is set for 8 to 10:30PM, and at other times the schedule is set for 4-6:30AM. When load shedding commences, one of the first things you notice is that all of the lights go out abruptly. Seeing entire neighborhoods suddenly descend into darkness is quite dramatic. At this point, what happens depends on the capabilities of the particular place.

At the hotel where we stay, for example, the internet comes on after the generator starts, but my computer doesn’t always pick it up easily, unfortunately, since it seems to mess with the internet settings in my laptop, which prefers more continuous internet. If one happens to be unfortunate enough to be in an elevator when load-shedding begins, then the lights go out and the elevator stops and the elevator returns to the ground floor and resets itself so that you have to press the floor where you are going again. Some of the people we ate dinner with a couple of days ago here lit a bunch of candles when load-shedding started to keep the room lit up enough for conversation, but all that did is make me sleepy. Alternatively, you can use the flashlight function on your phone as long as the power lasts.

As might be imagined, many of the South Africans I have talked to feel somewhat embarrassed about the state of electricity generation in their country. Many view it as evidence of the corruption of the powers that be in the country that a wide variety of scams are practiced in order to gain profit for some people at the cost of the well-being of the country and its citizens as a whole. Plants are powered with poor-quality coal while the high quality coal is exported. Trucks are cycled through plants multiple times to charge four times the amount of coal that is actually delivered. Plants are sabotaged so that people can get contracts to rebuild what they have damaged for their own profits. For all of these causes, and no doubt others, the load-shedding experience is par for the course for those who live and travel to South Africa, at least at the present time.