A brief orientation from the mountains of SA.

Read only if you are bored and have nothing else to do!

Here we are fine. It is incredibly beautiful and very quiet here at DeRust in the Western Province of SA.

Four people in total isolation. The local neighbour comes to see us once in a while. An older gentleman, as isolated as we. For me, hard to have a conversation with him; he only speaks Afrikaans.

I have been out running (jogging) every morning (except for 2 days. Laziness took over). Otherwise, everyone sits with their noses in a book most of the time. Lappies – the gentleman of the house – roams around and does practical things. E.g. the property is 100% dependent on its own production of electricity, which most of the time is produced by solar panels. If it is cloudy for too long during the day, he starts a generator, but so far it has only happened twice.

Water is coming (routed down through channels and pipes) from springs at the top of the mountain. (The Swartberg mountain range) The water is then collected in a reservoir and fed via a pump into a water tank near the house. When you open a tap, a pump automatically starts pumping the water out of the tap. When the tank is empty, he pumps the water from the reservoir to the water tank. Quite an interesting process to follow.

I am writing, evaluating the golf courses we have played, spending time hitting balls in a net and reading a great deal about South Africa, and its history before and after apartheid.

To me everything is a mystery – a kind of paradox. And, by the way, yesterday I left the 20 Titleist balls on the ground on the driving mat. And you know what – later in the evening the baboons (monkeys) had stolen 4 of them. Fortunately is was old balls, I had bought for practice.

The national economy is miserable, was almost in free fall before the Corona and will be even worse after.

The racial differences have not changed fundamentally since the blacks (ANC government) took over in 1994. However, I sense a friendly and cooperative relationship. And be aware; black here is not just black, black comes in many nuances. From immigrants from India to the immigrants from central Africa. It makes policy a mess.

The black empowerment policy and what is called The affirmative action and transformation act (implemented by the ANC, which has held the government since 1994) gives the black people the first priority for employment in all vacant positions at any level in private as well as in public organizations. The implementation of these acts is now considered (as I hear it, by most people of all colours) as one of the primary reason for virtually nothing in the public sector is working optimally.

There are plenty of examples. For example; now there are only trains running regularly on a few railway lines, where previously the railway network efficiently covered the entire country and was the primary source of transport, both for people and goods. So now, most transport of goods and people have shifted to the road network, which then slowly is worn down because the needed  maintenance is not done. Primarily due to lack of competences and financial resources.

At the same time, both of the two mentioned laws have resulted in an high level of corruption. Hard to see light in the end of the tunnel.

All the energy plants in SA are located in the northern part of the country (where the coal mines are). From here the electricity produced is distributed to the whole country. There is a nuclear power plant near Cape Town, but otherwise all electricity comes from the north.

The distribution of electricity is certainly not very efficient and on certain times of the day the plants are not producing enough.

When I asked one of my contacts about this, he gave me this answer:

“Yip as described the budgets are used to enrich. The original purpose was to build the new power stations. But the ANC worked in conjunction with Mitsubishi to build the 2 new power plants. The bribery was so bad in this case that Mitsubishi was fined by the FBI due to their rules around not allowing American publicly listed companies to get involved in bribery.

This has resulted in neither plant getting built correctly and due to further BEE (Black Economic Empowerment) regulation resulting in what is called pyramiding in which the BEE faces takes 50% of the cut and the work having to be completed on the remaining 50%, these plants have never being completed. It is so bad that Medupi (one of the power plants) is largely run from a Laptop inside of the generator rooms.

The server rooms have never been completed.”

More about this: http://www.702.co.za/articles/337793/eskom-paid-r300-billion-and-counting-for-2-deeply-flawed-coal-fired-dinosaurs

https://www.fin24.com/Budget/how-medupi-and-kusile-are-sinking-south-africa-20191009

That is why the authorities have introduced what is called “Load shedding”. This means that at certain times of the day, supply of electricity is shut down in selected residential areas, industries and public institutions, which, at the chosen time, are considered not to be in dire need of electricity.

The only bright spot for those whose electricity is switched off is that they are sometimes advised 12 hours in advance. This means that hotels and the like, who cannot service their customers without electricity have installed their own generators, which take over when the public supply shuts down.

The Load Shedding system is based on the knowledge of what can be produced at given times of the day and what the demand is. Subsequently, the supply of energy to “Non Primary” consumers are shut down.

This then leads to some degree of nepotism. Here is an example. Small scale, but here it is anyway: A middle-class neighbourhood, which generally always have their electricity supply cut off, usually late evening, was surprised when their supply suddenly was not cut anymore. Why? A black woman living in the area had been elected to the regional government. She needed electricity 24/7.

And here, far out in the countryside – up in the mountains – the biggest concern is that we will soon run out of wine and me from pipe tobacco. Things that cannot be purchased under the given restrictions. If we run out, we will adapt.

Then we will take an extra hike up the mountains, and contemplate on the meaning of existence.

I hope you are all well and have no bigger problems than us.