Cooking on an open fire is something we do to relax and entertain ourselves.
Although considering the price of red meat these days, I don’t know how anyone can still afford to braai chops for an entire family.
Then there’s still the fear of meat prices increasing one of these days, due to livestock vaccine-supply issues. But those are stories for another day.
Right now I want to help you appreciate the fact that no matter how bad things get, someone always has it a little worse than you.
Load shedding is forcing all of us to perform a delicate daily dance with our domestic responsibilities.
When to cook, do the ironing or quickly send a few important emails, while the Wi-Fi is working, are all things that now occupy the front of our minds.
But here’s a story to help you contextualise your frustrations.
The domestic helper at the offices I’m currently using, innocently boasted to me about her young son the other day.
He is 11 years old and when it’s load shedding, has taken to starting the fire in the late afternoon, so that she can start cooking as soon as she gets home.
That’s right folks, in 2023, there are fellow Capetonians living a few kilometres from you, who are forced to cook their supper on an open fire.
Being careful not to be overly intrusive, I quizzed her a little bit and she explained that sometimes neighbours share their fire with others who get home later and don’t have the time to start their own from scratch.
She laughed that it’s like a small gathering as four or five ladies stand around the communal flames, stirring their individual pots, like it’s 1923 all over again.
Sometimes those who failed to plan their wardrobe, will use the opportunity to heat up an old-timey iron to get a shirt ready for the next day.
This proud and jovial woman got a little sad when I asked her about the early-morning load shedding that starts at 4am or 6am when it’s too dark and dangerous to get a fire going.
Plus, there’s no time to start a fire for hot water to make a cup of coffee, have a quick splash or eat a bowl of warm porridge.
So she has to send her son off to school on an empty tummy, or buy a snack at the nearby garage, if she has some spare change.
She tells me that on one of the worst days last week when it was raining all night, she arrived at work in wet, creased clothes, reeking of old smoke and desperate for something warm to eat or drink.
She’s lucky that she doesn’t have to also still deal with an unsympathetic boss who demands that she arrive at work on time. Bizarrely, those evil stories exist out there.
Despite how doubly hard load shedding has made her life, this lady still had the humility to say that she’s pretty sure there are people out there who have it a whole lot worse.
“At least I have a job, so I can buy firewood,” she says.
But now I understand that our electricity grid is under such a lot of pressure that load shedding may get even worse.
One energy expert went as far as predicting Stage 16, where we would have just eight hours of electricity a day.
I don’t even want to imagine the kind of pressure this would place on vulnerable people like her, who are already barely managing to hang on.
And that’s not to mention those without jobs, who can’t even get their hands on firewood to warm their weary bones in the heart of winter.
And if things don’t improve, then her company may be forced to shut down, which will put her in the very position she speaks of.
breinou@gmail.com