Above: Typical traffic in Kampala NelsonNews February 2013 When I first moved to Uganda in 1999, there were no cell phones and only 19,000 land lin
Above: Typical traffic in Kampala
NelsonNews
February 2013
When I first moved to Uganda in 1999, there were no cell phones and only 19,000 land line phones in this nation of then about 20 million people. Use of internet was even more rare than using a phone. Eventually cell phones arrived and so did internet cafés. We could use the café’s computers or bring our laptops and hook up. Finally phone towers brought service to far reaching areas, and we were able to hook up to internet using a tiny dongle, like a flash drive that hooks into the USB port. So I was finally able to have internet in my own home. Then last year the first ATM machine arrived in the town near me. Internet banking arrived in the big banks, and I got hooked up with that last summer.
But if you think that it’s now like life at home, think again…
Internet is sporadic so I have it with 2 different companies, one for my laptop, the other in my BlackBerry. So if one is down, I can usually get it on the other. But this past week I lost internet on both for over 2 days. The BlackBerry was simply a matter of putting in some money (everything is pay-as-you-go), but it turned out the laptop dongle needed a new sim card – which I didn’t even know it contained!
In spite of the advent of computers, Uganda is still not computerized. Most business paperwork is still that: paperwork. The nation is now requiring registration of all sim cards by the end of February, and as I learned, that also meant my internet sim card. A trip across town to the place where the sim card could be bought netted only a request for my ID and a passport photo (required for any application). I thought I had passport photos at home, and it had been a long day, so I returned home to tend to it later in Luweero, the town nearest me.
An emergency took my pocket money the next day, I could not find my passport photos, and I had no money in my ATM/debit card account. My BlackBerry could not access the e-banking system, so I could not transfer money over to that account. My bank is 50 miles away. Thankfully I had a full tank of gas, so the next day, a friend and I returned to Kampala to take care of these matters. I was able to buy Wi-Fi time at a café and transfer money to access by ATM. Then I went and got passport photos done, and sent them with my Washington driver’s license as ID with my friend to buy my sim card.
Public transportation in Uganda, taxi, motorcycle and bicycle
I had forgotten that my WDL had expired last July. I had a letter from the DMV authorizing me to use it to drive with, and as ID, if accompanied by the letter, until I can get back to the US and renew it. So my friend had to run back across town, on a motorcycle taxi, to retrieve the letter. Upon returning with it, the letter was not accepted as legal ID, so they asked for a color copy of my passport.
My passport has been tied up for months at the Ministry of Internal Affairs. However, I do have a color copy of the required page in a file in my laptop. But I had no flash drive to copy it to. Had to go buy one of those, then go to a secretarial shop to have a hard copy made of the picture. Meantime it had started raining, so my friend had to go get the car to drive back across town to take this stuff and buy my internet sim card…
White van public taxies in downtown Kampala
They photographed the hardcopy of my passport and returned to him the original. We finally left Kampala about 5:00 PM, after having started all this process about 10:00 AM! Kampala rates among the world’s worst cities for traffic congestion; the city is usually a barely moving parking lot. But due to a police crackdown , many people are not driving in town. So mercifully traffic was light, or we could not have hoped to get my sim card processed in only one day!
The cost of such a day? Here’s the breakdown in shillings, and then I’ll translate for you:
• Gas for the trip to Kampala and back: 80,000
• Motorcycle transport for all the trips back and forth across town: 30,000
• Food for the day in town: 40,000
• Flash drive: 20,000
• Secretarial services: 2,000
• Internet sim card: 1,000
Translation: the day cost me about $65 The sim card? About forty cents.
All this so I could stay on line! Next time you think of missionaries, pray for us for patience, for finances, and for our communication abilities so we can do our internet business, and stay in touch with you! A good sense of humor helps too.
The end of a long, hard day
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