Someone living through worse load shedding than us has some sound advice for South Africans and tips on how to get through the worst of it.
Zambia – There are several messages about Loadshedding and Eskom currently doing the rounds on WhatsApp. There is the spoof video of the guy who gets his candle blown out by an Eskom official. Hands up if you got sent that one more than five times (we did!). And there is the message from a South African living in Zambia, who has some great tips for everyone.
The message has been sent to us several times in the last 24-hours and has caused quite a bit of chatter on the various groups. We are not sure who the original author is but one of our readers emailed to inform us that the author is in fact, Gaelyn Cockayne.
If you have not received it yet, this is the message:
“I live in Zambia, and have been living with load shedding every day, for 12-18 hours a day, for the past 6 months. A couple of my friends asked for my load shedding tips so I thought I’d share them here too:
Most important tip: be patient, stay calm, and accept that it’s going to be what it’s going to be, regardless of how worked up you get about it! Yes, it sucks, yes it’s unfair, yes some suburbs are way worse off than others. Losing your sh*t about it won’t change anything!”
- Fill a few 2L bottles with water and freeze them. When the power goes off, move 2 or 3 into your fridge and limit opening and closing the door. Leave the other frozen bottles in the deep freeze and only take them out once the others are down to about 25% ice. Swap them out for more frozen ones. This should keep your fridge cold enough to preserve your food for at least 8 hours. The ones in your deep freeze should stay frozen at least 12 hours. Remember, don’t open and close the doors unless entirely necessary!
- Keep your power bank charged up and ONLY use it when the power is off. If you know you’re in for a few hours downtime in a day, put your phone on low power mode ASAP to preserve battery life.
- Invest in decent rechargeable camping lights from a place like Cape Union Mart. They last a few hours and are bright enough to read/play board games/shower by.
- A car phone charger is a necessity!
- Keep groceries in the pantry/fridge that don’t require cooking (if you have an electric stove/oven.) Tapas anyone? If you’re desperate, a little camping gas stove is a good idea for easy meals like scrambled egg, 2 min noodles etc.
- When the electricity is on, boil the kettle and fill a flask or two to use for babies bottles/tea/coffee.
- Plan outings for your scheduled load shedding time. During the day it’s not so bad, but at night it can get real depressing sitting in the dark night after night. A movie, a date night, a meal out, late-night Christmas shopping, hanging with friends on a different schedule to you – all do wonders at boosting your mood and reducing the effect load shedding actually has on you. Don’t be scared to call on your community!
- If it’s within your budget, look at getting an inverter system, or generator. Even the most basic system will give you a few hours of the minimum: lights, chargers, tv maybe a fan.
“I know it sucks, and is frustrating and makes you shake your head and swear and rage. But try to remember the many wonderful things that you do have as a result of living in SA. And enjoy all the candlelit bubble baths you want!”
Do you have any tips for your fellow South Africans?
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