Imilender's tour in Sub-saharan africa

My appologies for being silent for a while. Have been a bit busy.

Electricity situation at the moment is better. Industries have been able to reduce their consumption somewhat, and Eskom has managed to get some power stations back online. The interesting discussion here is on how to manage the Fifa 2010 world cup, as the power production situation is not expected to improve considerably. The organizers are saying that they have agreed with Eskom that power will be quaranteed to the stadiums and to the regions where the stadiums are, but will the rest of the country be without power at that time?

Security in South Africa is a normal discussion topic and it is the question most people tend to ask as first when you mention you're living in South Africa. Well it is true that there are number of security precautions that have been taken in this country and that one needs to consider. First precaution is your car. Most people have their car's fitted with so called "smash-and-crab" coating for all windows. This coating will protect the windows from breaking if somebody hits them. Also you should never have anything valuable visible in your car and of course one should have the doors locked.

Second precaution is your house. One should either life in a secure estate in which there is 24hours security patrolling the perimeter. If you do not live in such a area, then you will have normally electric fence around your own house, alarms, metal bars in windows and doors etc. Same kind of precautions are around all shopping centers and you'll notice that when you leave many of the shopping centers there is a boom and security guard checking that you have keys in the lock (i.e. that it is you're car). I have just often wondered what they could do should you try to steal a car. Most shopping centers will also have car watchers, i.e. men and women who have been authorized by the shopping center to guard the cars in the parking lot. They will also help customers to load cars, take shopping trolleys back into the mall and guide in getting the car out of the parking spot. They work solely on tips that the drivers give to them, and they actually even have to pay little to the shopping center to get the permission to watch the cars.

Also one needs to take special caution in financial matters. The banks have established several security measures, such as sending random verification numbers to customers cellphones as sms before the customer can do any transactions and calling in to verify that the checks are truly written by the individual. However the villains have also found ways to get through those security measures. What they are doing is that they will intercept the fixed line calls and do sim swaps to access the victims mobile phone. Then the RVN or verification call will end up with the villain and not the victim, and they will get access to the victims bank account. therefore the recomendation is that if you're phone goes dead, call back first and then the operator, not the other way around.

But in the end, once you're aware of certain measures that you need to take, living here is very nice and the probability that you'll end up being a victim of crime is small.