Good times, loadshedding is back!

Bame Piet | Thursday October 16, 2014 15:26

To me, it doesn’t matter whether or not my cousin, thousands of miles away, has been missing in action. You know the Kim…Un guy? We are distant cousins! He was recently reported missing, until he emerged this week in good spirits.

You will be shocked to learn that throughout that period we were constantly on the phone discussing the future. He only stopped taking my calls in the past two weeks after we agreed to embark on another round of missile tests just before the Festive Season. We want to prove to the world that ours is a nuclear powerhouse. Perhaps we should start relations with this desert country, which can’t produce anything for itself.

It doesn’t matter either, whether some Kings are exchanging verbals in public in the name of politics.  It is refreshing to see Kings doing what they did this week, since the two guys, we are told, grew up together as cousins. It is normal for cousins to cross roads, and these two gentlemen are no exception.

We all have cousins who make our lives miserable, stealing all the attention from us, betraying us, and refusing to pay debts just because they are our cousins. In one way or the other, our cousins sometimes make us feel like puking. Can you imagine a cousin who is always on the wrong side of the law? A cousin who is always high on drugs, and asking for  P5 everytime he sees you? Or a cousin who thinks that he is the best thing ever to happen to your family, who wants to control your life? Hei, what about this cousin who salivates at your girlfriend, or speaks badly to her in your absence?

Well, we don’t know what happened between the two Kings, except to hear that there is a woman involved. You see, men can do anything together, go fishing, fly together in a chopper, or sky dive together, but once a woman is involved, then the public has to know. Back to my topic of the day - after eight months of uninterrupted power supply from Morupule something, the four Fong Kong engines have succumbed to pressure and are failing to cope. They have switched off, and are not going to resume work anytime soon. The engines have defied a presidential directive ordering the power utility to make sure that we get power at least until October 24th. Yerrrrrrr!

It is not like I’m complaining, in-fact I’m celebrating that loadshedding is back after a few months of disappearance. Back in 2011 until August 2013, I enjoyed those moments when the power would go off when I was in the middle of my cooking; I enjoyed the scary moments when an elevator would switch off, getting me and strangers stranded for hours between floors of these high-rise government buildings. The youth of today do not understand the true pleasure of loadshedding. Imagine you are watching your favourite team playing, and making threats against the opponent, and just when your team is about to score and the power goes off!

Loadshedding was so good. But I have also heard people complaining unnecessarily about loadshedding. One woman was furious the other day saying : “Imagine your relative, mother, father, sibling or child undergoing a life saving operation at Princess Marina Hospital, the hospital, which doesn’t have backup generators, and power goes off”. I responded that she shouldn’t worry about that.

Others say that with the festive season just a few weeks away, this means that we will have to be very careful not to stockpile our gageneau fridges with perishables. It means that we have to go and buy chicken pieces for the day and go back to the store the following day to find rotten foods. I don’t buy their story. Its all crap. Loadshedding is good, and very good for us in this desert country.

This means that dealers in power generators are going to make a killing, as more customers will soon be queuing for generators to keep lights on during the festive season. This loadshedding can be stubborn. Why should it return despite the presidential directive?

I offer to bring my cousin here to examine business opportunities, particularly on tourism and power generation. He is a brilliant young man with ambitious plans for his country and planet earth, including helping those who cannot do anything for themselves. He is however, a humble person who will not display any person as their ‘project’.

He will silently build a power station of high quality, generate electricity for this country and return back to his mansion in Pyongyang. He will not invite any TV station to boast about building us a power station, nor will he accuse any King, or individual of failing to provide for their country.