The Power of Soccer

There was 5 minutes left in the movie I was watching when the power went out at Riverwalk Mall.  The power went out just before 7:30 pm -- which is not so coincidentally when the latest Africa Cup of Nations game was about to start.

You see, Botswana has been hit by a series of power outages, following faults in the system and a delay in completing the country’s new 600 megawatt power station.  Until the new power station is complete, Botswana will continue to rely on power from it's neighbor, South Africa.

I have been learning to adapt to these power outages.  The other night, I hosted a dinner party entirely without power. Instead of calling it off, I used candles for light, my friend's i-pod for music, and the gas oven to bake our "build-your-own" pizzas.  It worked !  We had a fun power-free evening.

Last Friday, when temperatures soared close to 40 degrees Celsius, my office-mates plugged away in the heat, without air-conditioning, and long after the batteries on their laptops had died, until quitting time.  My colleagues are very ethical (I love them for that!) and no one wanted to set a bad example by leaving early.

Our power outages are happening more frequently these days.  This is because South Africa is also experiencing its own power shortages and has to ration the available amount.

It so happens that South Africa is also at this time hosting the Africa Cup of Nations soccer tournament.  When it is time for games to broadcast, the South African powers-that-be make sure they will air in their key markets.  Botswana is not a contender in the Cup this year, so they must suppose that no one here wants to watch the games and can do without power for a while.  So, just before a game was set to broadcast at 7:30 pm this evening, Gaborone experienced a blackout in the area around Riverwalk Mall.

On the dimly lit taxi drive home, I started thinking....if a soccer game can be the cause for a power outage, could it not also be the solution ?

When I was in Kenya last August, I learned about an ingenious invention called Soccket that harnesses kinetic energy generated from a soccer ball to power electrical appliances. Surely, the African Cup of Nations game balls could be so equipped to keep a movie projector running.  

I will have to see if the powers-that-be can agree to that proposal....in the meantime, is there anyone out there who can tell me what happens in the final 5 minutes of the movie Argo ?