Wednesday, September 29, 2010

When Elephants fight


...is it the grass that suffers?!

 Not all the time. And at least not in business. The recent price wars in Uganda's telecom sector are a clear example that some 'elephant fights' do actually benefit the guys at the grassroots. The prices are skiing further south and I am sure the customers are even going to get better services.

One evening the relatively new company, Warid Telecom, decides to drop the internetwork rate to 5 shillings per second. The so called drawing of the first blood. And while the country is still celebrating this blow to the head, and planning to buy more Warid sims, the other companies throw their punches in an attempt to equalize. But then Zain quickly knocks out their teeth by dropping the rate to 3 shillings. This is the kind of fight worth cheering on.

Why? Coz we have come a long way! When the grandfather of mobile telephony in Uganda, Celtel (aka Zain but still broadly known as Selotelo to the old folks), started operations at home, I was a beardless skinny 17 year old lad in senior two at the famous Busoga College Mwiri. The cost of a mobile phone, a rather massive gadget at the time, was quite obscene. Two million Uganda shillings (that is what I heard back then!) was a rather high price. This was the kind of money that would be sufficient to take your child through the four years of O'level in a good school such as Mwiri. Or even a much better school like the one you went to. These gadgets were owned by a few individuals, who not only really seriously needed them but could also afford. These included the president, ministers, a few members of parliament and selected medics among others. The only person I remember owning a mobile phone at that time was my senior brother in law, a respected and much sought after orthopedic surgeon. I think the service was postpaid and it was also pretty costly. Someone informed me that Celtel charged a minimum of 10 US dollars (close to 200,000 Shillings now).

And then MTN arrived on the scene in 1998 or there about. I was a freshman at Makerere University , just settling into Lumumba Hall. More people acquired mobile phones. The prominent model at the time was the Ericsson 628. The famous one that came to be known as the 'block' or 'phone booth'. Every parent must have somehow owned one. Those were the days when phones were bought from possibly one MTN or Celtel outlet in Kampala. They were brand new phones. Wrapped in polythene and packed in a box. And they were still pretty expensive although MTN had managed to bring the prices down. Oh, and people basically held the same phone model! Back then MTN levied an evil monthly tax called ‘Service fee’ to have you on their network. You basically had to pay 18,000 shillings (later cut to 10,000) every month if you wanted to be able receive calls. If you intended to make a call then you would have to throw in some airtime as well. I remember a few students using their faculty allowance to buy phones and later on failing to maintain them because of the service fee. For them holding a phone was a status symbol. To some of us, moving around with a mobile phone that could neither place a call nor receive, was equivalent to one pushing a car to and fro work just to prove to his colleagues that he has wheels. That was dog poo!

And suddenly UTL Telecom came along in 2000. The students’ choice! I cannot forget the famous Mango campaign. UTL made it possible for most of us to own mobile phones. I bought mine, a Motorolla V28, complete with a radio and headphones, from UTL. While UTL started off by not charging service fee, MTN insisted on continuing to ‘recover its costs’ by fleecing its customers. And sadly, being on the MTN network was a status symbol for some. Guys would deliberately stroll around with useless thirsty phones, just because they were on MTN, and they found it rewarding to tease us for being on a students’ network. But we were ‘on air’ all the time and they were off most of the time. The term ‘service fee’ came to be as popular as ‘ability’ or ‘potential’ are today.  

 But the fact that UTL had joined the fray meant that the monopoly of Celtel, and now MTN, was busted. The costs came down. Second hand phones hit the market making it even possible for the common guy on the streets of Kampala to own a mobile phone. MTN finally dropped their silly monthly tax. The three elephants fought. The grass enjoyed the benefits. The war, if I recall very well, initially revolved around network coverage. Who was covering the country best? Celtel rebranded and lowered the prices further down that the once expensive, for-the-rich-only network now became quite cheap and even despised by taxi drivers.

Numerous promotions have come and gone in the course of these companies fighting for customers. New and cheap phones from China were offered at give away prices sometimes two for the price of one. Do you remember Kabiriti (MTN), Kiboko (Celtel), Katikitiki (UTL), Katala, and Katoki?! I remember buying a Kabiriti during one Christmas promotion, for just 25,000 shillings and using it for a year plus. Can you imagine, that inflation aside, a guy who bought the first Celtel phones back in 1993 would have driven away with eighty Kabiritis about two years ago?! Air time has been split from the once smallest denomination of 10,000 to as low as 500 shillings. And probably even lower!  Simcards are sold on the streets like bubble gum. Now even housemaids have mobile phones and can afford to load airtime using the small savings they make from buying tomatoes and onions from the road side market. Those on Walidi can call their relatives and talk pakalast!

Close to twenty years down the road, since Celtel first penetrated the mobile telephone market in Uganda, we have six or so players in this market. One of the latest entrants in this battlefield is the famous Warid Telecom (Walidi, pakalast) from the United Arab Emirates. These guys mean business! They have brought the prices very down and are still doing so. And they have brought the former heavy weights (Celtel and MTN) down on their knees!

And can anyone say the grass has suffered? In a sense yes! There was a time when the big guys carried two phones (one MTN and the other Celtel) just to be in touch with their cronies on both networks. At an affordable cost! Sometimes Celtel made sense when you were travelling to places, like Masaka, that were outside the network coverage of MTN. When the Ka-phone revolution came in even students could afford to carry two or three phones to reap the benefits of the intra network price battle. The advent of the dual sim phone didn’t help much because the list of service providers was growing big. You simply had to carry more phones. Remember the days of the ‘phone tycoon’ advert? It all looked like a joke back then but this now is the life of the average Ugandan phone user. Thieves also took advantage of the situation. They could buy a sim card off the street, use it to make their devious deals and then throw it away.

But can we really call that suffering?! When we can send money to anywhere in Uganda using these phone companies? When we can access the internet on our phones? When even pets are soon going to own mobiles? No way! All we ought to pray for is that these elephants should fight more and more and more. Someone please fan these fires. Because we are definitely reaping lots from the price wars of this perfect competition. Things are getting better and better.


In the meantime just brace yourselves for more splashes in the taxis as guys bleat “Harrooo, Harroooo. Norinkahe?...Munha obukoko bwazaala?...Wanjiiiii…nga sikuwulira....Eeeeeh, awadifo...eeeh!”


I know this is not a perfect way to end a nice story. But just imagine if this sort of thing were to happen in our politics: the wars with benefits, not the splashing!

Monday, September 13, 2010

My 'novel' fried posho recipe

I recently promised to give one of my friends a new 'one of a kind' recipe for preparing delicious posho (maize pap). I had been working on this recipe for about two weeks and was ready to brag it off to him when google changed my story.
Papa's fried posho and beans.

I am, in fact, a little bit disappointed with myself tonight. You see, just when I thought I had perfected my posho recipe, and was ready to proudly throw it around, I discovered that it is actually not something novel at all, if I can be very honest from the start.

Someone 'stole' the blue prints from me, did some editing and published the recipe in The New Vision almost three years ago! I was engrossed with other important issues like feeding bacteria, when a dude called Hillary 'Wharever' cut the tape. Yeah, go ahead. Do the 'ouch' thing. Smile. Infact burst out and laugh. Roll on the floor if you have ample space. And then write back and tell me how sorry you are about this. You being sorry that someone got this idea before and even published it. I know that is what friends are for. And that is why we like them. They comfort us. Sometimes after laughing behind our backs.

I am, however, glad that I googled my recipe name: 'Fried Posho', before getting down to write and post 'Papa's fried posho recipe' You know, high level science, and media in general, is extremely serious when it comes to the evil of plagiarism. I just wanted to be sure that I was not going to end up like someone who had done a copy & paste job just to impress others about my innovativeness. You know this business of getting other people's ideas and texts and reproducing them as your own without acknowledging the original author(s) is just so not cool. It is actually very unethical! It is very morally wrong. It is a sign of dishonesty.

Right now I am thinking that plagiarism it is akin to a pauper dressing up in the King's robes, riding into town on the royal horse and having everyone bow down for him! He, the pauper, will definitely feel like he is King but deep inside his stupid heart he knows he is a dirt eating impositor! I am sure you can imagine what would happen if the King's subjects found out that they were paying their respects to a disrespectful slimy-nosed pig. What would the king himself do to this hog?

And yet people continue to plagiarise!
Please be informed that I picked this from Wordpress:

Journalists steal their friends stories, panel beat them here and there and re-publish them. I read a little about a one Jayson Blair, a former reporter for the New York Times, who thrived on this evil. He finally lost his career! I have read about an academician (an Associate Professor) in the US who republished a paper that had already been authored by other people. I do not think, in my wisdom, that I should tell you where I have read these two stories from. I have already made it clear that 'I read' from somewhere! Besides, even if I told you where I got those stories from I am sure you would not cross check.

Anyway, let me tell you that I read about Jason Blair from here and the Associate Prof from here so that you do not think I made up  the stories.

I have also seen students ' reports with paragraphs upon paragraphs of text copy- pasted from the internet. Often without even a single reference quoted. I can not tell you where I read this from because this is my very own original writing from personal experience. Just believe me! But if you ever use this part of my information then kindly inform your audience that "Papa's Cocktail revealed that some students produce copy-pasted reports..."

It is quite sad that the internet has made it so easy for people to practice this vice. You see what you like on a website, you copy it and paste it into your document and voila! How often do you, for instance, see facebook status messages that you simply know could not have been conceived by the guys to whose names they are attached? It is terrible, isn't it?

I have told some students before that these days it is very easy for one's work to be checked for plagiarism. I can personally smell it in their work just by reading through once. It is possibe for anyone to get suspicious about some sort of fraud if they are familiar with your writing style and their know your capabilities. Sometimes I read something written by someone I know and a voice in my mind says "this is too good to be true...John could not have written this!" And I can confirm it by using various online plagiarism detecting tools such as Plagiarism Checker, Copyscape, Plagiarism.org and many others.

Well that  'novel' fried posho recipe of mine?! Are you still hoping to read the recipe here?! You wish.

I am very very afraid I am going to have to ask you to follow this link  and try it out "Hilary’s Fried Posho". All I can say, at this point, is that personally I do add a little salt at point number three. I have also experimented with a range of spices and different vegetables. But in moderation! And at point number four I add flour until I have a paste (not porridge)! Please do experiment and tell me how everything works out for you.

Sunday, September 12, 2010

Singin' with the students

I am standing in front of a class of second year undergraduate students, explaining something a little hard and boring, something that I quite can't remember now, when one of the bold students in the class raises her hand. " Yes Ray, what could be the problem?" She stands up, rolls her eyes in a way that suggests she is about to ask for a big favour. And then she yawns,  "Sir, I think we are having a hard time following and my friends here feel that we need a short break. Just to reorganise. Pleeeeeeaaaaaaase!"

Well, that is fine with me. In fact so fine because I was personally getting bored stiff by the non-responsive lot before me. So I suggest, "We shall have a short musical break. We are going to rewind on a short nursery song. I will drop the first line and you shall join me henceforth. Okay?!" They all agree. "Okay, lets go!"

"Doe, a deer, a female deer Ray, a drop of golden sun Me, a name I call myself Far, a long, long way to run Sew, a needle pulling thread La, a note to follow Sew Tea, a drink with jam and bread That will bring us back to Do (oh-oh-oh)..."


The whole class jumps in when I am singing "...a female deer..."  Even that quiet, shabby and very serious  boy from the rural environs, the one they call Professor, the guy who looks like he never went to nursery school and most likely never watched Sound of Music joins the fray. Someone starts whistling to the song as the kids go on and on neglecting my pleas of bringing the circus to a halt.

And then I hear foot steps. Not of one, but of a group of men. And most definitely one lady. I know who the lady is. She hates me. And I can hear the hatred in a very step she takes. The class breaks into a gravely silence when they see the head of department standing by the doorway. I can tell they are already feeling sorry for me when the whistling sound resumes, piercing into the thick mist of silence that had engulfed us.

What saves me from the impending disciplinary committee drama is the realisation that my phone alarm had gone off during my dream. I quickly jump out of bed to prepare myself for our church's trip to the Island of Koster in Sweden. I rarely wake up this early (6:00 am) on a Saturday. And I don't need an alarm to rise and shine!

Off to Sweden!