Superbowl Blackout 2013

February 3^rd, 2013

In true American style, most of the Swaziland PCVs assembled to watch the Superbowl, conveniently streaming live at 1:30am.  We all met at a Sundowners Backpackers and escaped the heat lounging by their pool.  We have befriended the owners of the place and basically rented it out again for the game.  The owners rigged up a big screen TV with DSTV so we could watch the game, helped us put on a BBQ dinner for everyone, and allowed us poor PCVs to pitch our tents in their yard, rather than pay for beds.

It was a great day until about 12:30am.  I was napping on the floor prepping for the 1:30am start time, when I huge thunderstorm broke.  Intense lighting, which provided awesome storm watching, also blew out the power.  Being flexible and embracing times of hardship, are two key features of a PCV so we partied on anyways.  At 1:30am we broke out the football snacks and all ate around one lit candle, as those who have iphones begged people from America to update us on the game.  We had made a squares board and all bought squares hoping our numbers would be the score at the end of each quarter, so it was very important that we at least got updates on the score.

Around 2:30am, at the end of the 2^nd quarter our power came back on.  Never have a heard a cheer so loud that erupted in that room.  We happily finished the first half the game, thoroughly rocked out to Beyonce (so amazing), and witnessed that awesome 109-yard touchdown!  As all of you know, that’s when your power outage happened.  At this point it was 3:30am for us and we had seen approximately 5 minutes of play.  By 4:00am, finally all the lights were back on (both here and in America) and we finished out the game, the final points being scored as we watched a beautiful post thunderstorm sunrise over Swaziland.  Just FYI I didn’t win any of the squares L.  Extremely sleep deprived, we cleaned-up, packed-up and went and ate lunch at 9:00am.  Then we tiredly got ourselves back to our sites, where I slept for 13 hours. 

I have to say, despite the electrical difficulties on both ends, the Superbowl was very fun to watch this year.  Maybe its because I just really miss America, but I think I might start liking football when I get back.  Skol Vikings?!? (is that what Vikings fans say?)