Love in a time of load shedding and cholera

I just dashed my dreams of having a wedding next year. This week, my fiancé paid a handsome deposit to put solar power in our modest home.

We are using money that was saved for a rainy day, a portion of which would have financed our nuptials.

Last year, I got engaged to the man I believe is my soulmate, and we had regularly discussed getting married in the lead-up to the engagement.

Our desires appeared simple back in 2021. A small traditional Hindu wedding ceremony and an intimate reception with the immediate family and a few close friends, followed by an island vibes honeymoon.

We researched tirelessly, contacting venues, planning menus, and budgeting for outfits and jewellery for the big day, honeymoon and pre-wedding rituals as per Hindu customs.

ALSO READ: City Power to reduce load shedding hours for Joburg

Load shedding for days

I have been a resident of Honeydew, in Roodepoort, for going on 11 years now. In the early days, blackouts occurred weekly and took up to two days to fix.

I realised back in 2013, my electric stove was about as useful as ice is to an Eskimo, and when it packed up, I opted for gas. I also invested in camping lights and power banks early on.

City Power was under siege from vandals and cable theft syndicates, so surviving power outages became part of life. But then, as load shedding increased, City Power’s vulnerability was exploited, bringing the local power supplier to its knees.

Not a day goes by without angry and helpless residents displaying their furore on City Power’s Twitter page, complaining of sometimes five-day to week-long outages.

ALSO READ: Eskom to impose stage 5 load shedding this week – here’s the schedule

In 2021, we invested in a small home inverter to power us for days we were hit with stage four.
We could not predict that our little inverter would exceed its performance carrying us for nine hours a day until it beeped out for the day like a life support machine.

We also started suffering gradual dehydration because we distrusted the quality of water coming out of the taps. It tasted like chlorine and reeked like the water stored in a toilet cystine. So one day, I can’t remember when, we decided to stop drinking tap water and added 2x5lt bottled water to our weekly groceries.

This week after being flooded with reports of a cholera outbreak in Hammanskraal, we know that we made the right decision to move away from consuming tap water.

ALSO READ: Cholera outbreak: Gauteng death toll rises to 20

Load shedding, stress-induced stroke

By mid-2022, it became common practice for us to pack an additional bag with rechargeable lights to power up at our places of work and a cooler of dairy products to store in The Citizen office’s refrigerators.

Then, we attempted to recharge the 71kg inverter between relatives in Randburg and home in the few hours, we have power supply between the two suburbs.

A few weeks later, my fiance experienced what appeared to be a mild stroke from all the stress on our way to the SA20 cricket final.

I will never forget the fear that gripped my seven-year-old daughter and me as the Uber driver was forced to redirect our route from the Wanderers Stadium to the nearest medical facility during load shedding.

We didn’t have an ambulance to rush through the Saturday lunchtime traffic, so we waited in the congestion behind several cars stuck at powerless traffic lights, watching in horror as my beloved’s hands became paralysed, his speech slurred, and his breathing turned to gasps.

I closed my eyes and internally screamed to a higher power to protect him while tears streamed down my daughter’s face, scared and confused from watching a man she had come to love as a father deteriorate before her.

ALSO READ: Higher load shedding stages will have ‘extremely detrimental effect’ on domestic economy

Saying ‘I do’ to solar power

The incident was enough to stop us in our tracks. Power rationing and the unpredictable return of power supply were taking a toll on our mental health.

As companions and lovers, we just found each other a few years ago, and we’re looking forward to spending our lives as husband and wife.

So cute wedding ceremony and island honeymoon aside (We had our eye on Ras Al Khaimah), we must put our survival first.

For us, it means detaching from celebrating the biggest milestone we would have as a couple.

We have been advised (unsolicited) to just “do it at Home Affairs”, but I wouldn’t even host a Sunday picnic there, let alone our precious union as husband and wife.

The solar installation, while empowering us to survive in South Africa, marks a drastic depletion in our savings and robbed us of a wedding. We are still walking down that aisle, but where and how remains a mystery, for now.

ALSO READ: When it comes to the power crisis, Eskom’s cheek knows no bounds