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Sacha, 24, is Lynne’s son and, after living in Pretoria for most of his life, moved to the UK two years ago when his job in the British military sent him to Scotland.
He recalled time spent in Britain before moving to the country permanently, when he worked at a primary school, and there was a power cut. “Everyone went mad, the school closed early, everyone went home,” he said. “But if we had stopped school every time there was a power outage in South Africa, I would have spent very few days at school.”
Growing up, Sacha explained that he and his family were lucky enough not to be affected by load shedding as much as other households due to them living in an affluent area.
“The area where we lived in had a few embassies around, so load shedding didn’t hit us too often because the embassies were normally exempt of it,” he explained. “Embassies, Government buildings, hospitals, and critical care facilities are normally almost always exempt from it. There are cases when there are nationwide blackouts though.”
When nationwide blackouts do occur, hospitals use backup generators to continue to care for their patients – and keep them alive.
Sacha went on to remember a time when his parents’ restaurant, as well as everyone else in the vicinity, didn’t have power for four days. He said: “We had to restock all the fridges and freezers in the restaurant as we’d lost all our food. We went out for one day to buy everything, but we lost it all again as there was another four-day power cut after that.”
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