Zambia: The Impact of Load-shedding

Imagine yourself arriving in a new country, the heat hitting you as you climb down the steps of the plane, tourist visa stamped into your passport, foreign sounds and smells floating across your senses, and excitement flooding your veins.

There’s not much in life that’s more exciting than arriving somewhere new and beautiful. And that is no different for Zambia. A country in the middle of Africa famous for being the home of the wonder of the world Victoria Falls, that it shares with bordering Zimbabwe, for its diverse wildlife, national parks and safaris. The falls are a huge attraction for tourists from across the world and so the town of Livingstone in Zambia, where we are staying, is a mixture of locals and tourists.

The town is small but has everything you need as well as great access to world heritage sites and national parks. Livingstone has been a settlement for hundreds of years but only really survives because of the economy brought in by tourism. Most locals living here provide services to tourists, such as taxi’s, hotels, bars and restaurants, and of course, tours to all the sights.

On arrival here we were impressed by the cleanliness of the streets, the pavements for those wishing to walk, and the neat and tidy store-fronts, none of which are wide-spread in Africa as a rule. The heat was oppressive, around 30 degrees with high humidity in December, but it was fairly quiet in town due to this being towards the end of ‘low season’ when the falls are at their lowest.

We had been aware that there was load shedding in Zambia before arriving here. As digital nomads, we do our research on things such as power, connectivity and internet speeds. So, as I said, we knew there were times when the power would be off. Load shedding is used in some countries to relieve pressure on energy sources when demand from the population is bigger than the power source can supply. In this way, load shedding distributes the demand for power across towns, cities and countries.

From our research it was unclear how often the power would be off, but we had seen that it could be around 10-12 hours a day. We have dealt with load shedding before in countries such as the Philippines. Whilst there, we were backpackers, not digital nomads, with no fixed schedules, work calls or deadlines, no real need to have charged up devices and Wi-Fi connectivity. Whereas here, in Zambia, it’s quite the opposite. Both Tom and I have work to get done and being without power is a big problem for us.

Perhaps the craziest thing about the load shedding in Zambia is the fact that there is no schedule for the power outages. In the Philippines we knew that the power would be on between 6pm-midnight each day, and so we could plan accordingly—making sure devices were charged up and tasks requiring Wi-Fi were done during this time. Here in Zambia, there is no schedule at all. This means that you have no idea when the power will go out, and makes planning anything very difficult. As an example, on our arrival in the country, the power was out for 20 out of our first 24 hours here, and those 4 hours were in the middle of the night.

When you think about the consequences of this, it quickly becomes problematic. Imagine needing to wash some clothes and having to be at home to get it done in the short window each day when the power comes on, or get up at 3am to do it. Imagine all the food in your fridge and freezer going off because the power has been off for more than a few hours. Imagine going to a coffee shop to order a drink to be told “sorry, no power”. Imagine the impact this has.

So, we did the sensible thing and booked an apartment with a backup generator. We thought this would keep us relatively unscathed when it came to the power going off. However, the backup generator is not powerful enough to power all the lights, sockets, appliances—fridge, washing machine, etc., Wi-Fi and air-conditioning. In fact, it only manages to keep the lights on around fifty percent of the time, two plug sockets and an extension lead, and the Wi-Fi.

All of this means that when the power is out and we rely on the generator, we have to work next to the plug socket that works – nowhere near a table with proper chairs. We also have to sometimes work in the dark if the lights go out, and with no air-conditioning we rely on two battery operated fans. As you can imagine, this is a tricky work set up. However, we know how fortunate and privileged we are that we can pay for somewhere that has even these basic functions in a country where so many people are literally left in the dark when the power goes off.

The impact that load shedding has on the local community and economy is huge. In a town such as Livingstone where tourism is the number one employer, people are often providing a service. When the power goes out, so do several of these businesses services.

One notable example of this was a well-known and recommended ice-cream parlour in Livingstone called Da Canton. We visited for a refreshing ice-cream on our first day in town, excited to cool down in the heat. On arrival all that greeted us were empty gelato and ice-cream freezers and defeated looking staff. No longer able to provide their service, like many other establishments in town, they had turned into a bar-slash-restaurant. Slash loosely included because these places can only cook basic food if the power is off. A sad and slightly depressing sight to see.

However, the silver-lining for towns like Livingstone in Zambia is that tourists will not be put off by the load shedding. After all, they’re visiting to see one of the wonders of the world, Victoria Falls, and most people coming here are looking for a digital detox whilst they hop on and off safari vehicles and stay in eco lodges. At least this means that a lot of the communities’ income is stable and unaffected.

We can only hope that the load shedding situation in Zambia gets sorted out by the government as quickly as possible for the residents that live here and the tourists that are visiting. In the interim, initiating a schedule for when the power will be out would be a huge help to everyone. Time will tell what lasting impacts load-shedding will have on this country, but the current situation is not a pretty picture.