SHEDDING EXPECTATIONS

Cathy Eden ruminates on the upside of loadshedding

The document I’ve been working on is finally finished and I’m about to hit ‘save’ when there’s a loud pop and my desktop PC shuts down. Curses! I’ve been so absorbed that I haven’t had my eye on the clock. It’s 10am and the power will be off until 12.30. I’ve also forgotten to charge my laptop, so now I have no option but to take a break.

I stretch, get up from my desk and wander through the silent house. No whirring dishwasher; no hum from the fridge. I suppress a craving for coffee. I know I want it only because I can’t have it. I eat two squares of chocolate to compensate, then drink some water. Might as well have it while the fridge bottle is still cold.

What needs to be done? There’s a pile of ironing, but I put it back in the basket. The vacuum cleaner is standing in the passage. I stow that away too, and fetch the broom. I like sweeping. I come from a long line of women who find it meditative. I work from room to room, trotting back and forth to the bin to empty the dustpan. That takes up a good half hour. I scrub my takkies and put them in the courtyard to dry. Next, I chop veg for tonight’s stir-fry. Then I gather my bags and drive to the shopping centre.

It’s quiet and dim inside. People are ambling in the half-light. As we trudge up the stationary escalator, strangers smile at each other and exchange quips about Eish-com and what the ANC really stands for: Another Night with Candles. There are grumbles, but

laughs too. We are making the best of a bad situation. The smaller shops are shut but the supermarket has a generator and the aisles are partially illuminated. I realise how noisy this place usually is and that I’m enjoying the lower light and relative silence.

On the way home I stop at the spring and fill four 5-litre bottles – my drinking and cooking water for the week. Back home, I unpack the groceries then syphon a little from my almost empty rain tank and splash the thirstiest-looking plants. I’m lining up more chores when the kitchen radio springs to life and the fridge gives a start-up rumble. I’m back in the first world.

Of course, I rush to the laptop and plug in the power cable. Then I restart the PC and wait impatiently for the router to sort out its flashing lights and stabilise. I sense that my heart rate is a little faster. I discover that I’ve lost some editing on my document,

so I’ll have to redo that. I put on the kettle – coffee will help me remember the corrections.

It occurs to me as I carry my coffee to the PC that the day I’m having in Cape Town, 2019, is odd, given the sophistication of the city and the era. Friends overseas have expressed disbelief that we almost ran out of water and are now running out of electricity: But how can you work? How do you cope? That’s crazy!

Yes, it is. But human beings are extraordinarily adaptable. We do find a way to work; we do cope. And each time we overcome a problem, we’re more aware; more resilient.

Straddling these two worlds has taught me something: I used to think I was entitled to basic services: the provision of water and power; the removal of refuse; petrol in the pumps; fresh food in the shops; endless choice. Now I don’t take these things for granted. Hot water in the shower is a wonder, as is the selection of lettuce in the supermarket. When the garbage truck roars down my street, I wave at the ladies hanging on at the back. I say thank you, and mean it.

Our crises have made me appreciate what it takes to keep a city going, and that there’s a very fine line between functional and dysfunctional. I’m aware that I have contributed to the problem and must now consciously be part of the solution. My sense of entitlement has shifted to gratitude for what still works, and a responsibility to limit my impact on a fragile environment.

It’s so easy to close this small window of truth and switch back into computer mode, but as I do, I notice that I’m quite sorry not to be doing the simple housekeeping rituals that don’t involve electricity. I’m supposed to scorn menial tasks, aren’t I? I’m supposed to see sweeping and polishing as a waste of time; I’m expected to complain about queuing at the spring and having to lug heavy water bottles to my car. If I’m to be taken seriously, I must pay someone else to take care of the mundane details of life and spend my valuable energy networking, posting on social media and promoting my website. I must keep swimming in the technology tide.

But here is my broom. Here are my buckets of

precious rainwater harvested from stingy clouds. Here are my containers of miraculous sweet water from the spring, which – lucky for me – is not far from my home. Here are my candles for tonight’s power cut, my mending and my books.

Behind me, stretching back through the ages, are my grandmothers’ grandmothers, with their brooms and buckets and candles; with the jugs they filled without complaint from the village well. When the power is off and I am obliged to be still, I feel their blood in my veins and their memories in my muscles as I sweep, chop and carry water, just as they did.

For all the wonders of technology, for which I am mostly grateful, these lapses into my ancestors’ worlds have something to teach me about authenticity. I may be better off in terms of comfort and longevity, but am I a better person for all my rushing about? Without the convenience of electricity, how do I compare in terms of self-sufficiency and competence?

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not keen to cook over a fire or do the laundry in the Liesbeek river – but I’m reminded that under the gadgetry and the speed that we now accept as normal are simple rituals that make us understand our dependence on nature and our interconnectedness to all things. An extended drought and an interrupted electricity supply are a forced reminder of where we have come from, how much we take, how little we give back and – when the wake-up call comes – what matters most. All the rest is an increasingly complicated game that we have agreed to play.

Tomorrow my family will gather round my table for a birthday dinner. The power will be off again, but we will pass the dishes, celebrate our ties and the fact that the children are participating instead of scampering off to stare at screens. We will mutter about corruption, incompetence and chaos – of course! – but we will be grateful for each other and for what we have.

As the flickering candlelight warms the walls of my old cottage I imagine it summoning the spirits of those who lived here long ago. In some respects their lives were harder than mine; in some respects, easier. Perhaps they will peer from the shadows and whisper, “Look! They haven’t forgotten everything! Maybe we don’t have to give up on them yet.” I hope they will approve of what they see.

Tomorrow my family will gather round my table for a birthday dinner. The power will be off again, but we will pass the dishes, celebrate our ties and the fact that the children are participating instead of scampering off to stare at screens.