Alrighty, so here goes.
I live in a small, semi small city in Zimbabwe called Bulawayo. For those uninitiated in the ways of the world that we live on, Zimbabwe is in Africa, that big piece of land just south of Europe.
Bulawayo is a medium sized place with all the amenities you would expect to find in medium sized place. We have our shopping centres, a cinema, a public pool, etc, etc.
What we don't have a lot of the time is electricity. "Load shedding" is a constant pain in the arse and on average we get cut for at least 8 hours every day. (Sometimes twice a day.) When it first began everyone would throw their toys out of the cot, bitching and moaning at the fact that once a week we lose electricity for 2 hours, how the hell are we supposed to live like that; what is happening to this place. Now... we would be ecstatic to get a 2 hour cut a week. Goddamn... we would be happy with 2 hours every day.
ZESA (Zimbabwe Electricity Supply Authority) has now become a swear word and probably the most hated company in the country. So much so that they changed their name and added a Development here and Transmission there to throw us off our name calling game. Didn't work. Dressed up chicken crap is still crap.
Although it does disrupt and dictate your life so completely, none of would really be talking to each other if it were not for ZESA.
You can approach anyone and get onto the topic of no power and they will understand and agree with you. Total strangers have a common foe; friends have a regular and continued conversation, "You know that bloody ZESA was off the whole day and all my meat began to defrost. That's the third time this month I have had to restock the deep freeze." We would also miss out on our self pitying jokes, "What did Zimbabweans use for light before candles? Electricity!"
The company is a mess, and probably one of the Minister's cash cows, (so we know where all the money is disappearing to), and forever on the back foot trying to fix power generation plants. Or so they say. They increase rates to generate more revenue, yet we still experience greater shedding. Unfortunately its a norm this part of the world: The more you pay, the less you get.
So why do I stay here? Because electricity and technology is not the be all and end all of life. The birds still chirp in the trees, the squirrels still chatter around the roof, the sun still shines during the day and sometimes, just sometimes the life giving rain falls onto the dry earth and emits the most wondrous smell you will ever experience. Unfortunately we had a bad rainy season and now there are water cuts too. But that's another bitch session for another time.
Take care.