Can’t wait for 2010

Last week the majority of South African Union of Mine workers downed their tools and these included some construction workers upgrading or building new stadiums for the 2010 world cup. The western media jumped on the story and predicted gloom and doom for the soccer festival. It is not the first time though that the games have been given such negative publicity. After the xenophobic attacks in Johannesburg, Cape Town and other areas of South Africa, a few friends and colleagues of mine were not amused and neither was I. There was a strong consensus that the games should be moved with others suggesting that Germany should host them again. The media had a field day. FIFA president Sepp Blatter came out in South Africa's defense to say the games are in Africa to stay.

Recently a contributor in a UK newspaper wrote of his apprehension of attending the games in South Africa saying the country has the world’s highest crime rate and that this had forced Group4Securicor to turn down a contract to provide security services at the games. He went on to describe how the FIFA Confederations Cup had exposed security and transportation issues and how these flaws will negatively impact on the main fiesta next year. He talked of South Africa not having enough dual lane highways, lack of street lights and of advice given the foreigners not to use public transport especially at night. He even talked of a brutal death of a European journalist covering the confederations cup although later on the circumstances of the death were corrected to state he was killed in a traffic accident. This accident was however used to justify his argument that South African roads are unsafe. He suggested the games be moved to Egypt because it is safer than South Africa despite having chaotic transport and choking pollution in the capital Cairo.

I have been to South Africa on a number of occasions over the years. I have driven on the streets of Pretoria, walked the streets of Bloemfontein, Sandton (at night) & Blairgowrie and have had a few beers in the bars of Soweto, Randburg and Pretoria. I may have been extremely lucky I didn’t kill my family in a car crash or was not mugged walking down the street at 8pm or was not harassed by a tsotsie in one of the night clubs. Or ‘my friend’ is just being a pessimist, suggesting that once you step out of that plane at OR Tambo Airport, you are at the mercy of the locals.

I intend to visit South Africa again next year to be part of the world cup. I had initially wanted to watch the few games I could on big screen from pubs or parks in Soweto, Mamelodi or Thembisa. The reason was simple – all games in Johannesburg and Pretoria have been sold out and now people have started selling their tickets in the UK for as much as £150! However my close friend I intend to travel with to SA has managed to convince me that I should buy a ticket even if it is for some game involving king makers. And here is why. We might never have a chance ever again to watch a world cup match live. So I will be scouring eBay, and if the worst comes to the worst, the queues outside the stadiums to get myself a ticket at a premium.

Now that union members have agreed terms and construction workers have gone back to work, all I can tell them is get the job done and do it well. Like MTN, the majority of South Africans and millions of soccer fans, I CAN’T WAIT FOR 2010!

Just write, don't type! After all who cares?

My mother loves a good movie and like me has no qualms watching a really scary horror or a flick that’s infested with pythons, crocs and komodo dragons. But unlike me, she has little time for TV or so I thought. So last year I got her the entry level package from DStv so maybe she gets a little more news from Al Jazeera than the dose she got from BBC radio.

Earlier this year she enquired about National Geographic channel and I promised to upgrade her package for her although I kept putting it off. In the past two weeks I saw an article in the press that DStv had introduced the Access package that had a good number of extra channels, including NatGeo Wild, for around $10 a month. I decided it was the time to make that upgrade. So I walked into Multichoice offices in Lilongwe lat week to upgrade her service. I was told I would need to pay for the new package although there were still five months to run on the other package she already has. The customer service office tried to explain why I could not upgrade but it didn’t make sense. Since I wanted to give my mama the NatGeo Wild she wanted I didn’t see the point in arguing. I was then given a list of the channels that come with Access. The list was written by hand on a plain A4 paper and had been photocopied! The handwriting was not necessarily the best (at least it was better than mine) and channel numbers were not indicated (the numbers you can see on the picture were written by me). This was so unprofessional!

The next day I went in to make the payment. I asked the cashier (whom I believe is a First Merchant Bank employee) how much I should write on the cheque. He quickly turned to his colleague and asked “kodi cheque chitheka?” (will paying by cheque work?). They discussed and then me mulled over it for such a long time I could sense Christmas was fast approaching. As I was about to pose my question again he shouted “K1,700!”. I can't recall the last time a dollar fetched K170 but I wrote the cheque anyway and he produced a hand written receipt! Had he not stamped the receipt I would not have accepted it.

At the end of the day I concluded that someone at Multichoice either rushed to the press to announce this new product or someone had not communicated internally in good time to get brochures ready and inform the cashier to setup that product in his system. Or they simply do not care anymore after all there is no competition! A typed list of channels on headed paper would have at least been nice. The confusion about cheque payments was also unnecessary. It all left a really bad taste in my mouth … the kind when you eat a rotten roasted peanut! Multichoice can do better, much better actually!

African Time

The other weekend my wife and I were running mad. We had a formal function to attend at 18:30 but at 18:00 we were on the other side of town in casual gear. We made a mad rush home to find a blackout. We quickly dressed in the dark and made it to the function at 18:50 only to find the function had not started yet. We asked an organizer who said that he hall was half full and that they were waiting for some more people to come so the proceedings could start. I felt bad that I had contributed to this delay but was a bit more pissed off with those who had not arrived yet.

A week earlier I attended the commissioning of a new printer at a local print shop. The function started an hour late because there were only five of us at 5pm, the time the function was meant to start. By 6pm there were in excess of fifty people.

Today my wife was attending a lunch scheduled to start at noon. At 12:15 there only a handful of people and table cloths were still being laid out and cutlery was nowhere to be seen. The function only started after 1pm!

The list of functions that start late because either people or guests of honor arrive late is endless and I have attended many. Sadly the organizers of such events let the culprits off the hook too many times saying ‘after all this Africa, we follow African time’ or some other flimsy excuse like that. African Time is an attitude of the past and should be buried in a very deep grave like all similar attitudes and things of the past (Off Topic: Actually we should consider burying JZU Tembo in the grave too!). It’s time we learnt to kept time. If we can’t for one reason or another, we should accept the consequences other than punish my wife who went to lunch on a very empty tummy or me who had to wait for over an hour before I could wet my throat with a very cold beer at the printer launch!