The Curse of Modern Technology

I know I’ve mentioned several times before that we’ve been having lots of power failures across Botswana.  Today when I went to work the campus had electricity.  Midway through my lecture we lost power.  By the time I finished teaching an hour later we still had no electricity.  Rather than sit in my dark, very hot office I decided to head home.

As I was on my way out of the building I saw a line of cars waiting at the boom gate.  Africa takes security very seriously, though in most cases I feel that the security measures are either a total joke, or more likely to threaten my well-being.  I highly doubt many students have cars, especially since it seems like all of them are currently taking their driving lessons.  But in order to keep the campus more “safe” and avoid unwanted and unauthorized cars, we have these electronic gates all over the place so only the faculty may park.  Do you see where I’m headed with this story?

So, the electricity went off and everyone rushed to leave campus.  Only to discover that…. The electronic gates won’t open when there is no power!  Thus, they CAN’T leave campus:

Some days I wish I had a vehicle here.  Today was not one of those days.