📙 Part 2: Describe a time when the electricity suddenly went off

This episode's vocabulary

Starting out (phrasal verb) – beginning a career or new phase in life. → When I was starting out as a designer, I worked on small freelance projects.

Load shedding (noun) – the deliberate shutdown of electric power in parts of a system to prevent failure. → Load shedding is common in some countries during peak electricity demand.

Cut off (phrasal verb) – to disconnect or stop the supply of something. → The water was cut off for several hours due to maintenance work.

Electrical grid (noun) – the interconnected network for delivering electricity. → Renewable energy is being integrated into the national electrical grid.

Power went out (phrasal verb) – electricity stopped working or failed. → The power went out during the storm and didn't come back for hours.

Under normal circumstances (phrase) – in usual or typical situations. → Under normal circumstances, the delivery takes about three days.

Resolve themselves (phrasal verb) – to be solved naturally without intervention. → Most minor technical issues tend to resolve themselves after a restart.

If memory serves (phrase) – if I remember correctly. → If memory serves, we met at a conference in Beijing last year.

Disrupted (verb/adjective) – interrupted or disturbed the normal progress of something. → The construction work disrupted traffic in the city center.

Middle of nowhere (idiom) – a remote location far from populated areas. → They built their house in the middle of nowhere for peace and quiet.

Adaptable (adjective) – able to adjust easily to new conditions. → Being adaptable is essential when working in different countries.

Taken aback (adjective phrase) – surprised or shocked by something unexpected. → I was quite taken aback by how expensive the tickets were.

Get by (phrasal verb) – to manage or survive with difficulty. → We can get by with basic supplies until the shops reopen.

Infrastructure (noun) – the basic physical systems and facilities needed for society to function. → The city is investing heavily in public transport infrastructure.

Cope with (phrasal verb) – to deal effectively with something difficult. → Learning time management skills helps students cope with academic pressure.

Questions and Answers

Maria: Describe a time when the electricity in your house, wherever you were, went off. You should say when and where it happened, how long it lasted, what you did during that time without any lights in your house, and explain how you felt about it.

Rory: I'd probably like to talk about the time when I lived in Ghana. This is about 10 years ago now, when I was just starting out as an English teacher. And if you're not aware where it is, then it's a country in the west of Africa. And I'd been living there for a few months. And in the first month, this kind of thing didn't happen. But later on, I was warned that it might. It's a practice called load shedding, I think, which is where electricity supplies are reduced or cut off in some places. I think it's part of managing the electrical grid in some countries, but I don't know enough about it to say for sure.

Anyway, when it did happen, of course, the power went out because it was disconnected; it lasted for a few hours, actually. And under normal circumstances, it would be difficult to know what to do during that time. But in my case, we knew that it was coming. Maybe not exactly when, but we knew when it was coming. We knew it was coming. And so I was ready. I just picked up a book, and I sat and read my book in the sunshine until the power came back on. We knew that happened because the fans started to work again. Some people have a real problem with the heat, but I don't mind sitting out in the sunshine and just waiting for things to resolve themselves.

When it comes to how I felt about it, well, it was a new experience. Having grown up in the UK, where this is not a common practice, it was a bit of a surprise. But nothing terribly dramatic happened. I was happy when it was over, but it's not something that really had a major impact on my life, because if memory serves, it happened at the weekend, so there wasn't really anything that was hugely disrupted by that. I lived in the middle of nowhere, so not a big problem. Of course, if it hadn't happened, then that would have perhaps been slightly more convenient, but it's hardly a disaster.