FRED KHUMALO: The depressing story of our lives
The American girl’s laughter at the term load-shedding for blackouts finally confirmed to the SA girls that they were from a Third World country
My 16-year-old daughter was at a leadership conference for young people last weekend. She tells me with a deep sense of embarrassment that much of their get-to-know-you conversation was about load-shedding: "When last did you have load-shedding?" "They are about to introduce level 9 load-shedding, do you know that?" "We don’t feel it so much because we have solar panels." "Oh, my street is suddenly so loud you’ll think you’re in Lagos, thanks to all these generators droning away." On and on the animated talk went until an American girl said: "Excuse me, but what is load-shedding?" A momentary silence. Then guffaws of laughter. One girl explained. It was the American girl’s turn to laugh. She called her other friends who were in another circle: "Hey, Jordy, they even have a special name for their blackouts. Fascinating name, load-shedding. But how did you guys arrive at that name?" Suddenly the SA girls realised this was something to be embarrassed about. It was finally confirmed tha...
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