Not Loadshedding but Electricity Interruption

I wonder whether the rest of the world has as many problems with their electricity as we seem to have here or whether Africa is unique?

When we first moved here we became quite frustrated on a daily basis by the electricity going off every single day for hours and hours on end.  I remember the worst was when it was off for almost 3 days in a row and by that time I was beside myself and close to crying...maybe I was even crying by then, I don't know, but I do remember how desperate I felt and it was then that I realized just how dependant we are on electricity.  You must realize that living here and to go for so long without electricity affects much more than not being able to cook supper, do the laundry or vacuum the carpets...it also means you can't charge your cell phone, which is your only means of communication with the outside world and you can't pump water for amongst other things a bath, albeit cold water because the geyser is not heating, or even to have a cup of tea - for which you need a gas plate and teapot.  Those were the days when we were totally unprepared for such events and they happened so frequently that it became part and parcel of our daily life living here.  If the power didn't go off, you were left wondering what was wrong and expecting it to happen any time soon...haha.  Then one year the municipality decided that we had pulled the long straw to be upgraded, and we were.  My word, it was as if we were living in a new country and from having outages every day, we were now able to have a continuous supply of electricity with no worries at all.

In recent years there has been much said and joked about ESKOM, our country's only electricity provider...what with 'load shedding' and other such nonsense...but WE have also become wiser over the years and more from necessity than anything else, have 'upgraded'.  Admittedly if it weren't for the fact that NiQi has special needs on a daily basis to keep her health to an optimum level, we may not be quite as prepared as we are now.  Our first investment was a generator, which is okay to use during the day but flippin noisy at night.  To run necessary appliances, like the fridge and freezer, charge cell phones and  be able to use a hair dryer made life more bearable for me when the power was off for any time longer than 6 hours.  Obviously at that stage too, NiQi was only needing electricity for her nebulizer and humidifier, which weren't running for lengthy time periods.  However as she has become more ill it has been essential to keep up to supply her requirements.  Using oxygen every night, throughout the night and sometimes during the day, as well as having a nightly feed has meant that in an emergency we have to have something to supply us with the electricity needed to power the machines.  She does have an oxygen cylinder which is usually kept in the car that could be used at night, but if it is not full then it will not last the hours it would need to run for.  So more recently, Johan invested in an inverter which has been put to good use on a number of ocassions already.  I have to say though that I am glad that NiQi is in hospital at the moment as we have just gone through almost 30 hours without power and I am not sure whether our back up plan would have lasted so long.  We used the inverter very sparingly indeed and in the early hours of this morning as I was busy in the kitchen I could hear it's energy levels too were failing...I even had to boil the water for tea on the gas as there wasn't enough to get the kettle going and it grumbled at me in a very loud tone to let me know it was not happy.

So prepared we are for long time periods without electricity, but it's really not ideal and I would rather not have to go through it too often thank you very much....