Can't Wait to Watch Figure Skating!

Sunday here in Sierra Leone, which means its Day 3 of the Olympics. The Olympics are a big deal here in Sierra Leone. Huge! Actually, thats not entirely true. Let me rephrase. The Olympics are big deal in my house. Why? Because I'm living with two Canadians who eat, drink, sleep and shit anything involving snow and ice. One of them is actually going back to Canada next week to enjoy the final few days of this years Winter games.

But they excitement for this years winter games has been somewhat subdued, mainly because they have not been able to watch any of the events on TV. Why? Because we don't have a TV in the house, don't have a satellite, and up until two days ago, we didn't have broadband either.

But now, with broadband, one of the Canucks has a friend who set up a Slingbox back home. It took 48 hours, but as of an hour ago, we now have full coverage of the Olympics a la CTV, a Canadian TV channel. The Canadians are now planning their whole day around the figure skating events this evening. Pretty amazing to see two heterosexual dudes so keen on figure skating.

But in Sierra Leone, life is all about the little things and thus, gaining live coverage via the Internet of the Olympics is a big deal (well it is to my roomates...). These guys are even plotting a way to 'liberate' a computer projector from one of my colleagues so that they can watch the events on a large screen rather than off a computer monitor.

Otherwise, its a busy Sunday here with lots of work to do before the day is out. I may not be an investment banker for the time being, but I assure you that working for the Government of Sierra Leone is in no way a 9 to 5 job either. With a Presidential election two and half years away, every private sector investment into the country has relevance, especially when they can create thousands of jobs and provide access to state-of-the-art technology.