Welcome to assignment on the BBC World Service. I'm Neil Riselle and if you're

going to stick with me for the next half an hour, bring a torch. I'm in

South Africa and the lights are out.

Welcome darkness, my good friend.

It's a gift to satirists.

It's good to meet you once again. But a nightmare for everyone else.

Because the power grids are stressing. That's a reason for the low shedding.

It's a catastrophic for the whole country.

Lides are off, traffic lights not working during peak hours is chaos.

They're driving the country into the bush.

The country is falling apart.

Why they do it we all know

because the resources are low. So this is the reality.

We are in Johannesburg and the street lights are off. You hear the horns going because

people are rolling through intersections where the traffic lights are out and

we're at the train station, the escalator is out. we're surrounded in darkness.

This is what passes for a power system in South Africa in 2015.

The worst thing is that they do this stuff when it's winter, like it's so cold.

The last time it was a whole day, yeah, I last time it was all day. Yeah, I would literally have no electricity.

It's seriously annoying.

There's a joke on Instagram.

They're like what were South Africans using before candles?

...