No Electric and a Vote

Its 7 o clock in the morning. My father is already working on a car in the yard, and i can smell kidneys being fried in a pan. My parents like having loud conversations in the kitchen, it is either that or they both going deaf. It does not help that we did not have a architect design our house, had it been so they would of advised not to have my bed room next to the kitchen.

Today is not Sunday, the only day none of us works (apart for my father and his odd hours as a mechanic), its ELECTION day.

For some odd reason, my father and i have to drive out to Mannenberg school (5 minutes away from home but if u from the flats you would know where and what Mannenberg is like) and my sister and mum vote in Surrey Estate my home town. Different areas/zones are allocated different voting stations and apparently these barrier lines separating the various zones runs through our house. The logic I cannot fathom but so do the posters hanging on the electric poles!

My father thinks that the world should wake up when the sun rises. At six in the morning you will awke to the sounds of a Bollywood hit or memory (not by Mehboob Bawa on KFM tho) on his magic radio which can pick up frequencies from here till Timbuktu!! On one occasions I was having an in depth conversation with a friend on the phone when I heard my voice echoing in the room, my father had managed to pick up our conversation on this radio. I don’t know how and I don’t wish to know, all I do know is , it must never happen again. But today is different, today there is an added bounce in his step, its election day.

So he drags me out of the bed just past seven, before I managed to grab a cup of java or any other stimulant to wake me up from a late night out with some colleagues, with my hair resembling Marge Simpson on a good day, off I go to vote.

I feel a bit proud as I get to the station, as my father predicted we are the only cars parked but then again, people here mostly travel with the infamous taxi.
There are people who are in wheel chairs, old people, aunties and uncles all coming to make a cross or a tick next to a person who has promised them a better South Africa.
I am proud in their faith, i am proud that they realize that they can make a difference and that their vote does count.


there are people out there, who complain about the state of the country and comment on Tokyo Sexwale and why he is so rich. Jealousy makes u ugly, i want to say. I am not naive i no that there is a lot of corruption, i know what the state of the country is. But people seem to forget, people forget we lived in a country of oppression where I would not of had the opportunity to study at UCT, or go to Mugg and Bean and have a much needed cup of coffee.

So now i am walking around with a black mark on my thumb nail, returning home very quickly to have a quick breakfast before the electricity cuts again.

The night before i am sitting at Spur canal walk with these above mentioned friends, and there the electricity cuts. I cant believe it!!
The waitresses hurry around lighting candles, some people rush off without paying and the entire eating arena is making a raucous noise, Pandemonium.

Twenty minutes of huddled in the darkness we contemplate on what is really happening at ESKOM and we agree that, "EKS DOM" is a new more appropriate name change. Sabatoge before elections, spare parts we Eskom cannot afford, the only person who can fix the reactor terminal is on holiday in France and his cll phone is off cause he cant afford cell phone roaming are all plausible possibilities however, the real reason is discovered or uncovered)Homer Simpson was employed at ESKOM! It might have been funny at that time, but the inconvenience is phenomenal, especially in the evening when I chose to check my mail and surf the net.
No TV, no warm coffee, one is resorted to either talking with your family or fall asleep at nine!

So I want to get home before the electricity cuts, and manage to make it is time to make a warm cup of Nesquick and a slice of toast and Nutella.

As I sit at the table, with my mum on the other end, cutting biscuits for a wedding on Sunday, there the electricity cuts.
My mother shouts something I dare not repeat, and I say those words she so often tells me, " i mos told you so, but noooo you dont want to listen."

Two hours pass. My aunty (my mums sister) comes to visit with her two parrots, Raja and Rani, drink tea made on a gas stove (every Indian house has to have one, the reasoning is beyond me, but at times like this, one ponders less on it, and is grateful for its existence irrespective of its origin) and resort to eating lemon creams (no baking required).

My sister hops around the house listening to her new MP3 player, my brother skids off on his bike off to play cricket with my cousins in Rylands.

My father listens to Indian music, on a radio powered by a huge orange car battery looking very out of feng shui, in my parents bedroom.

My online withdrawl symptoms starts to kick up and I retire to a sun lit lounge with the Da Vinci Code that I have been reading since 2005.

The streets are quieter for some reason, and as the night creeps in there is an eeriness outside, like in a spook movie.
At 9.30pm, I hear my pc switch on and smile to myself inside and out.

My sister is happy (relived and orgasmically ecstatic), just in time for Desperate Housewives, my brother is on his PC playing his computer games.
My father turns the battery off, plugs the plug into the socket and listens to his Indian music, and my mother, well my mother can finally bake the Blooody (oops) biscuits!!!