Well, Oliha has been having Internet problems in Benin City, Nigeria, so once again I'm snatching his pencil. Since I've been talking to him via phone, I will do my best to convey his frustrations. Things are tough!
Now when I've used cybercafes in Nigeria, I've had fairly good luck. Many of the Lagos ones were lavish, air-conditioned palaces with good connectivity. Even my village on Benin City's outskirts had a pretty good cafe with reasonable hourly rates, though sites with lots of images or Flash inclusions were slow-loading (that cafe had a special all-night bargain rate, intended for teenaged boys' porn access--really!).
Oliha, however, is finding that he has to wait unbearably long periods to even open his email. To download a two-page document with some pics took him over 45 minutes--and then the printer wasn't able to deliver before NEPA took light (i.e., the power went off). And he's been through nearly five days of this struggle--even getting the Google main page has been a tortoise-like process. While the cyberistas assure him that this is not constant, that there's been a recent connectivity problem, that info has been cold comfort.
Did I need to mention to him that through SL I have found out that both Senegal and little Mauritius are high-speed enough to allow their African users to enter Second Life? Or that in next-door Benin Republic, SL resident and Saminaka supporter Bafana Beaumont (on a holiday at home in Cotonou) can get on SL, even if he can't move? Perhaps not--I think I heard his teeth grinding. Why can't Africa's most populated and one of its richest countries get good broadband service? Cables are being laid down the East African coast, and that region will soon be enjoying. Seems a sin and a shame. How many day's oil production would a steady endeavor need for funding?
--Tamsin Barzane for Oliha
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