The Power Supply Situation In My Area

This week's prompt is about the electricity supply in your area. Well, first off, I live in Africa where almost everything is epileptic including the electricity.

But in my immediate area things has not been that bad. I mean we've enjoyed consistent electricity for some period of time. But sometimes the electricity supply company just choose to do like they like. Sometime ago they used to ration the light, like one area would have light for 24 hours and the other area would be in total blackout. But since the new governor was elected, things have changed considerably. But one can only manage the situation as it is.

Power Supply Problems And Solutions

One major problem of power supply in my area is the epileptic supply. We rarely have light for up to 12 hours uninterrupted. Sometimes the light would be on for an hour the next hour it would be off. This usually hampers the activities that require electricity to accomplish, like cooking, ironing clothes, charging digital devices, etc. Though for cooking we can make do with charcoal stove or gas cylinder. For the smart devices we can go to other places to charge or use a power bank.

Another major problem is the high electricity tariffs. We have almost paid our wallets empty in electricity tarrifs. In fact right now we are owning thousands in accumulated fees. The Nepa officials surface at the end of every month to harass people who hadn't paid their electricity fees and sometimes they just disconnect the light and you'd have to pay up and also pay a reconnection fee for reconnection.

But we are doing our best to survive. For cooking we make do with the charcoal stove or the gas. For digital devices, we go to other places to charge up. And sometimes you have to stay hours at the place for the devices to charge.

These days I mostly wear my clothes without ironing or at most give them out to the dry cleaners. But most of my clothes do not require ironing after washing so that saves me some.

For entertainment, I just turn to my smartphone and watch movies, scroll social media or read books, since most of the time there's no light to watch television. Also I watch live sports on my phone if television is inaccessible.

Conclusion

The situation of electricity in my area is dire, but we are surviving. We will continue to manage until things get better. There's no other option.

All images generated with MetaAI.*

Thanks for reading.