Odd stories about cellular phones in Africa

By Aloyce Menda of JUSTA-AFRICA


The first digitalized mobile phone operator in Tanzania, Tritel was closed for bankrupt after less than three years of operation. Tritel was the second mobile phone company to be registered in Tanzania and its failure in business astonished many people who believe that mobile phone companies in Africa are reaping wealth. When it started operations in 1996, Tritel made its vision and mission apparent to public: It was “a company of the elite serving the affluent elite”

It was sparkling and sincere proclamation but a blunder as far as long-term business strategies are concerned. So Tritel operations were concentrated in Dar es Salaam, the largest commercial city and the de-facto capital of Tanzania with a population of three million.

It is accurate that in 1990s cellular phones were deemed as expensive technology of the elite but was a lacking necessitates that common people envied as well. By then, Mobitel, the first mobile phone operator in Tanzania was still utilizing the cumbersome analogy technology, lacking the pre-paid vouchers cards.

Vodacom, the third and now the largest mobile phone company in Tanzania started its services in late 1990s. Soon it realized the available business vacuum and hence capitalized on the Tritel mistakes. The first Vodacom advertisements depicted a Maasai herdsman talking through a cellular phone while watching his herd of cattle amid the vast jungle of Maasai land. Maasai is a famous indigenous tribe of east Africa adored for cultural preservation, traditional knowledge and resistance against foreign manipulation as well as affluent technologies. Vodacom imported the less costly and smaller Siemens cellular sets to go parallel with its services.

Clients could get a connected Siemens cellular for Tanzanian shillings 70,000 (approx. US$ 70), from Vodacom vendors scattered in Dar es Salaam. Before a connected cellular could cost as much as Tsh. 150,000 (approx. US$ 150) or much more, from dealers linked to Mobitel and Tritel, the predecessors in mobile phone technology in Tanzania. Vodacom also simplified its services and spread them countrywide contrary to its competitors. The company is today accredited for changing the format of mobile phone services to be a common man friendly in Tanzania.

Currently, cellular phones also known as wireless phones are no doubt, the most famous tool of all the modern Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in Africa. Only broadcasting FM radios, matches mobile phone operations in popularity amongst the ICT services. In contrast to the broadcast technologies that were the mark of modernism (radio and television) the digital mobile phone technology allows anyone who is connected to send a signal, and to choose which signal to receive. The message is free from the definition of the medium, and the consequences are profound.

Currently, Africa is the world's fastest-growing mobile phone market. Use of mobile phones has been increasing at an annual rate of 65%, more than twice the global average. Mobile phone companies are making a fortune in Africa. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) says more Africans have begun using phones since 2000 than in the whole of the previous century. Today there are more people using mobile phones across the continent than traditional, fixed lines. However, like fixed lines concentrations, most of cellular phones are used in urban areas by minority elite. The poor African majority still cannot afford cellular phones despite their high desire for that.

The media and minority elite in control of information flows has disseminated many stories and advertisements on the benefits of mobile phones as a modern ICT but still there are amazing facts under the cover.

About two years ago, Sarah, a jealous and dishonest nurse employed in a maternity hospital broke her marriage due to mobile phones. Her divorced husband Adam is a Dar es Salaam based trader who travel outside the city regularly. For over a year Adam had rejected a request to buy a cellular phone for her wife though he possessed one.

Sarah was envious, tired and frustrated by her husband’s negative response. She eventually took a small loan from her employer and bought two cellular sets, one to walk with and another to stay home. Her actual aim was to have a firm control of the family especially her husband she persistently accused of having sexual affairs outside their marriage.

A month after buying the phones, Sarah was in contact with so many people some of whom Adam could not trust, but was hesitant to query. He once traveled outside the city and called Sarah but could not get her because Sarah’s cellular was switched off. He then called home and a housemaid told him that Sarah was out for hospital night duty. He then called the hospital through the landline. The hospital receptionist told him that according to the accessible duty roster “Mrs. Sarah Adam is out of duty!”

Adam was more frustrated when he called home in the following morning to be informed that her wife was still in a night duty! He bought a return ticket immediately for a journey back to Dar es Salaam from Tanga. After seven-hour road journey he was back home and found Sarah asleep late in the evening. Adam pretended to be filling ill and hence the reason for his earlier return. Sarah said she was scheduled for a night duty that night but could ask her supervisor to substitute her with another nurse so that she could stay home to care for her ailing husband.

Adam told Sarah that he was not that much sick to disrupt her working schedule. He thanked and pleaded to Sarah to proceed for a night duty. Sarah insisted to call her supervisor and stay home to care for husband. While Sarah was in the kitchen, Adam called the hospital reception to ask for Sarah. “I am sorry according to available duty roster Mrs. Sarah Adam is not supposed to be on night duty!” a receptionist replied. Adam was distressed and asked Sarah for the telephone numbers of her immediate supervisors. She refused to give and a serious squabble erupted between them. The following morning Adam was in the hospital administrator’s office requesting to see the current duty roster for nurses. The administrator refused to discharge it.

He despaired and unhappy marriage started. One month later, Adam tricked Sarah. “I have a one week trade mission outside the city, I will leave to Arusha tomorrow,” he told her showing a bus ticket. The following morning he packed his bag and Sarah escorted him to the station to ensure he embark in upcountry bus.

But Adam dropped from the bus in the next station and returned to the city by taxi. He logged in a guesthouse far from his home. Late in the evening he left the logging to investigate on Sarah. He could secretly trace Sarah as she was leaving home for a night duty with a handbag. Amazingly Sarah went to meet a man in a guesthouse close to the one Adam was logging. After 30 minutes he called Sarah and but her cellular was switched off!

Adam hired paparazzi to take Sarah’s photo as she was leaving the guesthouse towards a pub, dressed in another attire. He then followed her secretly and took cover in adjacent street apartment corridor. A few minutes after arriving in a pub, Sarah called Adam. “Hello darling, the bus has just arrived in the fourth station. It is cold here,” Adam told Sarah.
“I am just from the surgical theatre to find a missing call in my cellular,” she replied and after that Adam was disconnected.

Sarah made another call immediately. This time it was to a man she left in the guesthouse. She ordered a waiter to bring her a drink and after 10 minutes, the man arrived in a car to joined Sarah for a night drinking spree. Apparently, the man was the hospital administrator who refused Adam to see the nurses’ duty roster. About 30 minutes later Adam arrived in the same pub with three men and a policewoman to confront Sarah. It was the end of Adam and Sarah marriage. It was also the end of the administrator’s marriage and job.

One month after the divorce, Adam thought he was too lonely as a man. He set an appointment to meet with a woman in a pub in one of Dar es Salaam’s outskirts. He was the first to arrive in the pub during the evening. After drinking some few bottles of beer, he decided to call her. “I am on my way, just wait for one hour,” replied the woman called Hidaya. Five minutes after, a beautiful lady arrived with a large plastic bag and asked Adam if they could share a pub table. “Why not. I am waiting for my girlfriend but we can share this table,” said Adam. “I also expect my sister to come here,” said the lady and ordered a soft drink.

After five minutes of silence, the lady said: “I forgot to charge my cellular battery, I can’t call my sister now. Do you mind if I put two dollars in you cellular and call her.
After a moment of thought, Adam replied: “Please you order the waiter for the voucher and call her from here”
The lady took two thousand shilling note (equivalent to two US dollars) from her purse and ordered a re-charge voucher.

The waiter brought the re-charge voucher immediately. Adam re-charged his mobile phone and then hand it to the lady. “Please don’t exceed the amount you paid for,” he said while smiling. She took it and dialed some numbers.

“Hello Susan, I am Joan calling from Makutano Bar. I am using a hired cellular. Mine has some problems. Do you hear me?” said the lady through the line. She then stood up as trying to search for a less noisy site in the pub. “It is very noise in this bar, I can’t hear you well”

Adam was very watchful, but reluctant as the lady moved from the table to a corner, while talking through the phone. He was less suspicious because the lady left her shopping plastic bag with all contents. He could partially see two boxes of very expensive perfumes, CD-R and a modern Nokia cellular set atop the full plastic bag. “Why worry, if she disappear with my cellular I will have her bag and all the contents,” Adam comforted his doubtful senses.

The lady moved further towards the entrance of the crowed bar. Immediately she got out in a dark night and vanished amid the crowed commuter bus stand. A waiting car took her to unknown destination. The expensive Adam’s cellular is gone!! Adam could not believe the lady has gone. He asked the waiters if one of them so her leaving the bar. One waiter said yes but did not suspect she could be such a terrible woman.

Then Adam decided to check the contents in the abandoned plastic bag. The bottles in the perform boxes were empty, the CD-R folders were empty and the apparent Nokia cellular was a toy!! Beneath them in the full plastic bag were boxes for a radio set and electric cattle. The boxes were filled with garbage!!

Adam was confused and could not immediately decided whether to continue waiting for Hidaya or leave the pub to report the case in a near by Police Post. Eventually his sense took charge and he decided to call Hidaya in a nearby telephone kiosk. Hidaya replied: “Why are you using different phone line? I said I am on my way, just wait there”

Adam replied: “Somebody has stolen my cellular phone just now. I am going to report in the nearby Police Post you will find me there”

Hidaya concluded: “No please, I cant. Please call me tomorrow afternoon”. She disconnected. Adam reported the case to Police Post. The In-charge of the Police Post told him: “Yours is the seventh case of similar cellular phone theft to be reported in this Post within this week alone. Please keep your case file number and I will be in touch with you in case we find one of these thieves”. According to Adam, his stolen cellular is worth US$ 350 and was the third set to be stolen in a span of 28 months. Pickpockets snatched his first two.

Adam could not convince Hidaya to meet him again in any social gathering or private place despite his persistent calls in the following days. He suspects that Hidaya is a friend of her divorced wife and that “Susan” the lady who stole his cellular is also connected to Hidaya. “They colluded to punish me for divorcing Sarah,” he laments. But what Adam doesn’t know is that Hidaya, like her divorced wife Sarah had secret love affairs with the sacked hospital administrator, who has also turned to trade to earn a living.

Some odd stories may remain under the cover for a long time since they are not likely to please even the poor majority who cannot afford cellular phones because most have already acknowledged that mobile phones are so good and hence they have to struggle to get one.

Being a vast continent, the largest mass land in the world, Africa faced severe problems with wire telephone systems before the wireless technology was introduced in most countries. Though costly, the wireless technology has proved to be the most appropriate for Africa, which is dominated by rural population.

Lack of telephones directories for mobile phones and the difficulties users faces to search for relatives’ numbers when they lost their cellular sets is a big problem facing mobile phone users in Africa now.
ENDS
Aloyce Menda is the coordinator of JUSTA-AFRICA [http://www.comminit.com/experiences/pds122004/experiences-2850.html]

& The second price winner of the UNECA / AISI Media Award 2004
[Www.uneca.org/aisi/ma04winners.htm OR www.uneca.org/aisi/ma04quotes.htm]

E-mail: [email protected]

Posted By: ALOYCE MENDA