In the US, I’ve
heard of people taking off work the day after the Super Bowl. On the
other side of the world, you HAVE to take the day off if you want to
watch the Super Bowl! Eric and I both have a few hours off after
11:30 a.m. on Mondays, so we were able to catch the second half of
the game. With the recent introduction of satellite TV by one of the
major mobile providers, some places on center have access to live TV.
We went to the training center (where they regularly hold classes to
teach computer/linguistic/etc. skills to national translators) where
they had set up a screen to project the game for anyone who wanted to
watch.
As we hurried along
the ten-minute walk from our house to the training center, an awful
thought hit Eric. The electricity had been out at our house all
morning; what if it were out at the training center, too? Some places
on center run almost exclusively on solar power. Others are powered
mainly from batteries that collect excess solar power from those who
have solar panels. And others, like us, depend on traditional power
sources. We weren’t sure which category the training center fell
in, so we didn’t know whether we would actually be able to watch
the game or not!
When we arrived, we
found out the electricity was on! Many people who showed up to watch
the game brought their laptops with them so they could actually work
during the game. We muted during all the commercials so they could
focus on their work. Most of us who went to watch the game were
Americans, but we did have one Australian and two Papua New Guineans
join us!
