For Four Days We Had To Live Without Electricity Poem by Gert Strydom

For four days in the Lodeyko suburb of Springs,
a town in the ANC ran Ekurhuleni metropolitan,
we were without any electricity
that drove my aunt, my mother and I
to a primitive kind of existence
and I found it extremely strange
for the power to be switched on at
exactly twelve o'clock, at midday.

For one or other reason in Lodeyko
the tap water is of such a quality
that a person has to cook it
in order not to get ill from it,
where in the Petersfield ext 1 suburb
there is fountain quality drinking water
and on an open fire we had to prepare
\our drinking water.

It is terrible not to be able to bath or shower,
not to have hot running water,
not to be able to shave
or be able to prepare a hot meal
without going to the primitive measure
of lighting a open fire
and to wonder when
will the power again be switched on
when the power has been pre-paid.

There is a term power-shedding that
the state-controlled power company ESCOM uses
when it simply switches the power off
and nowadays this has been happening randomly
but this incident has got nothing to do
with any kind of power-shedding

People from the municipality said
that it was from power cables been stolen
but near to the Petersfield ext 1 suburb
a power-sub-station did blow up and burn down.

Previously after a break-in at a power-sub-station in Springs
power cables were stolen
and it did after that also blow up
and in a fire burn to the ground
but the thieves knew how to assail
all of the safety measures
and after been warned
that the power station would malfunction
still the municipality continued to run it
without making repairs to it
© Gert Strydom