The Stalker: A Local Story of a Woman Who Gets Called By Her Phone.

Oh yeah- leapfrogging. When a technology is adopted so late in the game that the adopter skips merrily past the costs and technological constraints of earlier models of said technology and arrive fresh at the very edge of things. In East Africa, we have leapt the frog on mobile phones and mobile banking. With the right provider you can pay anyone, find out anything and practically fly any plane with your trusty little made-for-EA Nokia (warranty provided in Kiswahili and English). What's not to like?

Well. My phone has started calling me. To be more specific, my mobile phone service provider has started calling me directly. It all started out innocently enough: Bharti Airtel, the Company Formerly Known as Zain, Formerly Known as Celtel, added a nifty new feature. Every time I made a call, it would let me know how many of my Shillings I'd just tossed their way and my balance. No problemo, for those of us on prepaid it's a handy way to keep track of things.

Then, whenever I would send a text message, the phone would let me know how much it had cost me and efficiently suggest that I send a couple more texts to tap into their gajillion-free-sms a day promotion. Alrighty then, I thought- nothing wrong with a suggestion or two. After all, I am already their customer, right? How nice of them to "save" me some money.

Then one day I made the mistake of checking the day's exchange rate. The next day, I was considerately sent a text with the exchange rate for the currency I had checked up on. Shades of Big Brother, but okay. There was an escape clause (so I thought): you could send the word STOP to their five-digit code. So I did. And lo and behold, the next day I got the exchange rate text again. So I said STOP again. And lo and behold, the next day... you get where this is going don't you.

So now, I get the daily text message I do not want. Every time I talk on the phone I get an instant replay after disconnecting. And every time I text message, the little cheerleader that lives in my phone gets a sugar rush and starts yelling at me to send More! More! More! I thought that this is about as bad as it can get.

Until the day my phone called me. I picked up, thinking that a long local number like this might be attached to a potentially lucrative networking/work connection. "Hello?" I went with Professional Voice- alert and friendly but slightly cool to the touch. Silence. Then the pre-recorded message in Universally Annoying Female Voice began. I had just been cold-called by an android from my phone company to sell me services that I don't want. This, in addition to their newfangled habit (borrowed from Vodacom) of dropping your calls mid-conversation for the fun of it.

No one wants to be called by their phone. Ever. What's next, refrigerators that purse their lips in disapproval every time you reach in for just one "last" slice of chocolate cake?

How marketing departments come up with such evil schemes, I do not know. But there is a special circle of hell for them in the eternal inferno where they are hung upside down with their heads in a boiling river of fire and angry customers pelt them with early-model mobile phones while yelling "One minute for a third of a Shilling!" and "Hallo! Hallo! We Nani? Mzee Juma yupo? Kwani we ni nani?"

Mobile Ambivalence

I am a bit of a luddite when it comes to mobile telephony. Even My Lady of the Pixellated Smiles is quicker than me to use any new phone's features and I am a good generation younger than she is! It is embarrassing. I suspect that camera phones were invented with grandmothers in mind, as were picture email attachments.

This is a very loud world, but I can't help being part of the introverted minority for whom the written word is infinitely preferable to the spoken one. We are happiest when left in complete silence (silence!) with a good book and a person who knows that the art of conversation involves give, take, and thoughtful...silences. Libraries and bookstores are sacred places of worship. But, you know, it's the 21st century and I must live in it, amidst the extroverts. Besides, I only know two people who still writes letters by hand.

So this morning here I am surfing the intertubes and reading in blessed silence (silence!) when a totally surreal IT technology/Social Media moment comes my way. A friend had just got off the plane at Schiphol and was promptly greeted with a welcome message from Zantel. Being a savvy Tanzanian, he naturally has a simcard for every service provider but he only bothered to load up credit on his Tigo, Vodacom and Zain numbers so that he could roam at will. Because, you know, they are big companies that know their stuff, right? Right? Wrong. Said networks were useless in Amsterdam. Which led to him sending me an IM- from Amsterdam- to SMS his credit dealer- in Dar es Salaam- to send him credit on his Zantel line so he could use it in- Amsterdam.

Dude. Science is Magic.

In my day, when wild beasts still roamed the wilds of Mbezi freely and there was nothing but swamp and cattails in Msasani, you had to book a phonecall one week in advance with TTCL and then wait nervously to get connected to Nairobi or wherever so you could have a mangled conversation with someone struggling to comprehend you on the other side. Then TTCL would bill you an astronomical amount for that dodgy service because someone had been using your line illegally. A young girl might, under these circumstances, develop a fondness for letter-writing.

I have been preached at by the experts and the zealots, told about the power of mobile telephony to "transform Africa", et cetera ad nauseum. Yeah, I get it. I am even a massive fan of telephone banking services and all those little thingy-ma-bobs that make my life easier: what's on at the movies, what is the price of a goat at ving'ung'uti, how is the shilling faring against the dollar today. Jeez, I even ventured into the waters of a smartphone- me, who believes that handsets should be chunky rugged childproof bricks that do only three things: light your way home at night, call and text message. I suspect that even with all that power under the plastic keypad, the best feature of this phone will remain the text messaging function. God, I love it. It is silent.

Anyways, have a totally connected weekend. Just don't be that obnoxious ass yelling into your bluetooth headpiece in the middle of a nice quiet lobby. Shhh, for goodness sake!