We work very hard on field trips!
Hi all!
This post is not anywhere near as serious as the title hints. I'm just writing about how, for the last three days, I have had to camp in my own house. It is all because as most South Africans can testify, we are not all that good at grasping and understanding this concept of public service and community.
The reason why I say that I have had to camp in my own home is that we have had no electricity for the last three days! It's been insane! There was some problem and our power went out some time very early on Monday morning. I woke up to find that our house was unusually cold, despite the fact that we don't actually have any heaters in operation at the moment. I recieved a phone call on my cell phone, which incidentally was in the final throws of battery death, tried very hard to answer the call and for some inexplicable reason, couldn't. So, I got up and tried to plug my phone in to recharge the battery.
Now, usually, I do have problems getting the plug of my cell phone charger to actually make a decent connection so that I can actually charge my phone. So, this morning, when I plugged it all in and failed to get any hint of recharging it didn't strike me as particularly strange.
I sometimes like to listen to music in the mornings to wake me up a little. So on this morning, I pressed the play button on my CD player before I tried to plug in my phone. It was at this point that I noticed something odd. There was nothing happening. Not even that familiar whirring sound that usually preceeds the music. So, I sat up and looked at the CD player. That was when I realised that we had no power.
Now, power failures in SA are not entirely uncommon. We have them from time to time, however they tend to last about an hour or two at the most. This one went on for THREE DAYS! We are very fortunate however as we are one of the few families that I know that have solar heated water. It's great because it means that we still had hot water! The only down side was that we had to go and fetch the water from our pool area as that is where the solar unit thingy is. We also had to invent a new style of washing which involved getting a bucket of hot water and a sponge. You would then use the sponge to generate a kind of spray, similar to an actual shower only much less satisfying.
Then, our prayers were answered this morning! I awoke to my father sitting at a computer, checking his e-mail. The power had been restored!!! So, tonight I look forward to a shower instead of a 'bucket' as we began to call the new cleaning process. Also, I don't have to worry about concerving my battery life on my laptop! Yay!
In hindsight, it was actually rather scary to realise just how dependent we are on our electricity. It felt as if our lives had come to a complete stand-still because we couldn't watch TV or surf the web. It's rather sad really. All the same, I am thrilled to have it all back!
As an aside, I went to prize-giving this evening and finally recieved the prize for the mysterious money which I recieved a while back. It was cool! I got a post-it note with something along the lines of 'If you have any problems, please contact Mrs. Adele Katz'
Random Fact Of The Day:
Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries
This post is not anywhere near as serious as the title hints. I'm just writing about how, for the last three days, I have had to camp in my own house. It is all because as most South Africans can testify, we are not all that good at grasping and understanding this concept of public service and community.
The reason why I say that I have had to camp in my own home is that we have had no electricity for the last three days! It's been insane! There was some problem and our power went out some time very early on Monday morning. I woke up to find that our house was unusually cold, despite the fact that we don't actually have any heaters in operation at the moment. I recieved a phone call on my cell phone, which incidentally was in the final throws of battery death, tried very hard to answer the call and for some inexplicable reason, couldn't. So, I got up and tried to plug my phone in to recharge the battery.
Now, usually, I do have problems getting the plug of my cell phone charger to actually make a decent connection so that I can actually charge my phone. So, this morning, when I plugged it all in and failed to get any hint of recharging it didn't strike me as particularly strange.
I sometimes like to listen to music in the mornings to wake me up a little. So on this morning, I pressed the play button on my CD player before I tried to plug in my phone. It was at this point that I noticed something odd. There was nothing happening. Not even that familiar whirring sound that usually preceeds the music. So, I sat up and looked at the CD player. That was when I realised that we had no power.
Now, power failures in SA are not entirely uncommon. We have them from time to time, however they tend to last about an hour or two at the most. This one went on for THREE DAYS! We are very fortunate however as we are one of the few families that I know that have solar heated water. It's great because it means that we still had hot water! The only down side was that we had to go and fetch the water from our pool area as that is where the solar unit thingy is. We also had to invent a new style of washing which involved getting a bucket of hot water and a sponge. You would then use the sponge to generate a kind of spray, similar to an actual shower only much less satisfying.
Then, our prayers were answered this morning! I awoke to my father sitting at a computer, checking his e-mail. The power had been restored!!! So, tonight I look forward to a shower instead of a 'bucket' as we began to call the new cleaning process. Also, I don't have to worry about concerving my battery life on my laptop! Yay!
In hindsight, it was actually rather scary to realise just how dependent we are on our electricity. It felt as if our lives had come to a complete stand-still because we couldn't watch TV or surf the web. It's rather sad really. All the same, I am thrilled to have it all back!
As an aside, I went to prize-giving this evening and finally recieved the prize for the mysterious money which I recieved a while back. It was cool! I got a post-it note with something along the lines of 'If you have any problems, please contact Mrs. Adele Katz'
Random Fact Of The Day:
Guinness Book of Records holds the record for being the book most often stolen from Public Libraries
2 comments:
Three days!
It's better north of the Jukskei.
I actually like just at the source of the Jukskei! But alas, this didn't help with the power problem...
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