What Happened Today

Maddie gave me the permission to finally pull out her decaying front tooth that was hanging by a thread!! It was so gross to see it just dangling there day after day. She finally had the courage to allow me to put tissue around the tooth and she would tell me when to pull. The funny thing was she got nervous and jerked her head backwards (I still had the tissue on the tooth) and she pulled it out herself! She was crying don't take it out and then I showed her it was already out and then she went on to tell me that it hurt.


There is a new annoyance here at the house in South Africa - We lose power for 2 to 4 hours each day. It is different every day and always seems to be at the worst times - dinner time, night time, during the time I would call home and talk to family and friends. Have you ever been like me where you know the power is off, but your brain forgets and you go to turn on the light in the bedroom or use the toaster and duh - NO POWER.

South Africa is doing what it calls load shedding. Here is what I found out on the Internet:
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What is load shedding? Eskom’s business is one of supply and demand. Its customers demand power every time they switch on an electrical appliance, or light switch, and Eskom supplies the power to meet that demand. For a full 24 hours, every day of the year Eskom’s system controllers must supply the national grid with just enough electricity to meet the demand.

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Power users such as steel producers, aluminium smelters, mines, cities and agriculture are all sources of load to the system controllers. On a typical weekday, load starts increasing from 02:00 – two o’clock in the morning, climbing steadily as people wake up, get ready for work and open shops, offices and factories. Between 06:00 and 09:00 the system experiences its morning peak load, when the demand can get close to the available capacity.

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Then the load eases off until the afternoon peak, which usually starts around 16:00, when people get home and entertainment centres come to life. In summer air conditioners and in winter electric heaters form a heavy load. And all the time the ubiquitous geyser silently gobbles up electricity, keeping its load of water hot. Unless it has an insulating blanket, the geyser uses more electricity in winter than in summer because it loses heat through its metal walls.

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Winter is also the time when the morning and evening peaks get higher every year, bringing the demand closer and closer to the supply. Usually the supply is adequate and the peak passes without incident.

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Occasionally, however, problems arise. A huge turbo-generator in a power station develops a fault and “trips” – shuts down, no longer contributing to the supply, as happened to one of the Koeberg units recently.

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When this happens, load exceeds supply, and the load has to be reduced to a point where the available capacity can handle it, otherwise the result for the whole system could be serious. So the system controllers “shed some load” – they switch off the supply to various customers for a short while.

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Eskom has contracts with some large power users that allow it to do this. These customers can cope with being switched off, as long as the interruption does not exceed specified periods – say 30 minutes. Usually that is enough time for total demand to ease a little and for the problem to pass.

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If not, Eskom must switch off another large user and restore power to the first. Occasionally, when demand goes unexpectedly high, cities suddenly become victims of load shedding. In most cases this does not last longer than two hours.

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Eskom follows certain principles when implementing load shedding. Load shedding is done on a rotational basis, limiting it to two hours per area. Where possible, Eskom tries to avoid load shedding in areas where there are critical and sensitive services like hospitals, economic hubs like shopping centres, strategic product areas and high security areas.

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So, if your lights go off unexpectedly, it might be a local fault affecting a comparatively small area around you, or it might be a problem at a power station that takes time to fix.

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So there you have it. Scott was telling me that this may go on for 7 years. Due to this they are trying to get new companies (factories) to put off their projects for 5 years! Are they serious.

So Scott's bright idea (since he is always thinking ahead) is to build his own power plant and supply power to a certain area for a fee. Maybe it will work!

Due to these power outages we have found interesting ways to fill our time. Maddie and Alex even got their dad to play Pretty Princess games:




The object of the game is to collect all of your jewelry pieces (one at a time) and avoid getting the black ring. When you have collected and put on all of your jewelry pieces and you land on the crown you win the crown and have become the PRETTY PRINCESS.


Maddie almost done collecting her jewelry


Alex and the Black ring (you may not win if this is in your possession). He was eager to get rid of it.

The end of the game! Alex, despite getting the black ring a few times, WON and is crowned the PRETTY PRINCESS!!

And then on another side note: When we took our trip to the East coast in September we came back to our house having a huge water leak. You could tell that water ran down our walls by the stairs and that it was flooded in the house (I guess here I can say thank you for tile floors). We eventually had the problem fixed so that no more water leaked in the house when it rained, but we had not repaired the walls of the bubbling paint and water rust streaks left behind on the wall. We have been discussing this with our landlord for months to get it fixed. He tells us on a regular basis yes - this week some time (we all know what that means)!! So last week He finally came out with some painters and we were so excited to finally have it fixed. I moved all the stuff on top of the stairs, took the alphabet off the wall. WAITED, WAITED, WAITED - I thought they left to get the paint, but I guess they left for the day. SO NOTHING DONE.

Then low and behold this morning 7:45am there is a knock on the door - No advanced notice, no guard at the gate telling us they were here - The painters are standing at the front door ready to paint. Should I complain - NO, BUT COME ON - a little notice would go a long way (Especially when I am not a morning person).




There is always something going on here at the Leenstra Household. We are all finally back on a "schedule." Scott will be busy soon with work starting in February. I am very excited for Scott and Nkhensani! Things are looking up. Home schooling is still going well. Some frustrations on both of our part, but nothing we can not work out.

We hope you all are doing well - I here it is cold!!

God bless your day!!