26 Jan 2009 – Electricity

South Africa is still very much a developing country, despite the sometimes deceiving appearance of Cape Town’s urban cityscape. Democracy is just fifteen years old, here, and television has only been around since the 1970s. Like many countries at this stage of development, the electric grid in the city is not always consistent, especially during the load-shedding season in March. But when the power went out at 10 Loch Rd. around dinner time on Sunday night, it still caught a lot of us off guard.

At the time that it failed, the twilight sky still provided enough light that few people noticed the outage until they tried to use the kitchen appliances. Still tired from a day on Table Mountain, students milled about between the pool house and the main house, waiting for some indication that the power would be restored. A security guard came to check on our security system failure, and most of us assumed that he knew what he was talking about when he assured us the electricity would come back on in a little while. But an hour later, with the darkness creeping in around the house, we gathered in the kitchen to devise a plan. Between the fifteen of us we had four or five available flashlights and a headlamp, which we used to light the kitchen cabinet that held all of the electrical equipment, while I flicked the switches and tried to flip the circuit breaker.

Nothing worked.

Finally, having realized that the power outage did not extend beyond our property, we figured we should probably give our RA, Ben, a call. He assured us he’d be over in a half hour to address the issue, and that left the house to gather around a flashlight-turned-candle at the dining room table, telling ghost stories and generally frightening one another. As they shrieked and shivered, I wandered the first floor looking for any potential sources of our power failure.
During the “dark period”, much of the house was worried about our lack of security and the broken front gate, which had been stuck open since that morning. Between the darkness and the sudden sense of vulnerability, the atmosphere was ripe for anxiety, and one student seized upon the tension. No one noticed him disappear outside, but suddenly he was jumping up behind the front window and shouting in alarm. The trick sent half of the students screaming and cowering into a corner, while the rest of us – amused but unfazed – waited by the gated front door for Ben to arrive. He whisked past us about five minutes later, headed straight to the kitchen with a slip of paper in his hand. He punched in a code on the electricity box, and just like that, the lights flickered on.

Everyone cheered.

At that point, with all of us clustered around the kitchen table, we reiterated the evening’s ghost stories and “frightening” moments to Ben, who laughed along with us at the silliness of the situation. Of course, the story grew even better when Ben confessed that the outage had actually been his fault; he’d forgotten to buy more electricity and had accidentally let 10 Loch Rd. go dark.