A lot of kids and teenagers are gathered inside Paul’s store next to the internet café section. It does not take long to understand why: Indeed, three new arcade game machines & a PlayStation provide foot traffic and a welcome revenue boost to Paul’s business.

Despite the welcome new income stream, Paul explains that he has suffered a lot for the past three months due to load shedding and transformer overloads, which has caused prolonged power outages. As a result, perishable food items need to be discarded, and he loses a lot of revenue. He decided to stop stocking products for the general dealer to minimise his losses. The power cuts have also disrupted connectivity for the internet café, though Paul is hopeful that the connection will be restored in a few weeks.

Paul stresses the importance of his family business legacy and keeping it alive for the next generation. According to him, introducing arcade games was an opportunity to keep the business open and generate some form of cash flow. There have been fewer power cuts of late, and he has plans to reopen and relaunch his business after the winter season and implement the recommendations from his students.