Tech | Safer Internet Day: How prepared are you?

In February every year, the world celebrates what we now know as Safer Internet Day (SID). Organized by Insafe (a European network of Awareness Centers), its principle objective is to promote safer and more responsible use of online technology and mobile phones, especially among children and young people across the world.

Internet safety is quite a broad subject whose scope of potential effects may range from privacy compromise and misuse to financial loss, emotional and physical harm. Back home, we ask: How have you prepared yourself to ensure your own internet safety?

A couple of days back, PC Tech’s Joanita Nalubega delved a bit into basic checks and precautions that could help you maintain or improve your browsing experience. Today, we look at a few more that will help you draw a comprehensive safety checklist;

1) Check for, and activate any additional security features (aside from the SSL already mentioned) that may trigger alerts you in case your profile is in danger of being compromised. These include email login alert for social media sites like facebook, yahoo and Gmail, as well SMS notifications.

2) Maximize the use of privacy features and settings on any sites that have these options. Again, social media is the biggest culprit here. Some people put their bio-data out there for every Tom, Dick and Harry. 

You visit someone’s profile and they have crucial information like phone number, date of birth, email and their spouses exposed to everyone. Only people you consider close enough should have access to this information.

3) Certain streaming websites (news, sports and other events) contain multiple adverts that may either be malicious or time wasting. Most of them have actually have provisions for closing the ads without necessarily visiting the embedded links, but these are usually made less conspicuous than the hoax close options that are always more prominent.

4) Turn off the location feature when posting social media status updates unless you are travelling to some place you don't know. It may make it easy for someone trailing you to locate you. Some smart phones have this feature turned on by default.

5) Regularly change/update personal security information such as passwords. Social media is awash with a number of applications and games that require the user to supply their passwords. You never know from which application someone will access your private information. 

6) Apply strict filtering on your email accounts to avoid running into spam emails. The same applies to social media accounts that are now awash with schemers and scammers.

7) Avoid using the same password on all your internet accounts - email, online transaction accounts, social media, forum subscriptions and professional group memberships such as LinkedIn. Granted, we now live in an era where we have tens (and probably hundreds) of PINs and passwords that we ought to memorize, but maintaining the same password for each medium is never a good idea.

8) Install and regularly update a strong anti-virus. Regular checks on trending anti-viruses may help. There was a time when Avast was the in-thing, then came AVG, f-secure, Kaspersky, Symantec (Which is still doing strong, I must add) and many others in between. 

9) Avoid download links that go through additional 3rd application downloaders. What do I mean? I have seen phones that cannot, for example, do direct 3^rd application installations (such as whatsapp). In such cases, the app (or its update) has to be downloaded via a PC first and transferred via bluetooth before it can be installed on the phone. 

In some cases when a user just types "Whatsapp free download" (as an example), they are redirected to a site that requires them to get a third party application downloader first. Some of these are hoax download links that come with malware.

10) Take note of warnings regarding browser add-ons and plugins that may affect your browsing experience. One example here is Internet Download Manager (IDM). Some add-ons slow down, and may temporarily hang or crash certain browsers. This may happen when you are in the middle of a composing an important email and you will end up losing your (unsaved) data. 

Dan A.

Travel | Tamam, Tamam!

South Sudan is not a country that will have you drooling with excitement every time it’s mentioned as one of your next possible destinations. You will have read stories about all sorts of horrendous acts and gruesome murders and kidnaps and you will wish the “South” is removed so you can at least end up in Khartoum.

If it’s your first time, your family will pray for your journey mercies throughout the night. They will spend the rest of the day praying for your safety while you toil for their (and your) future. Your friends will think you are going to make lots of money so you can buy “house” them if you return because South Sudan is such a high risk area that your company must be paying top dollar for you to work in such an environment.

You will hope the stories you have read in Western media were exaggerated, and that South Sudan is some really cool place where you can afford to take a selfie in the middle of the road without some angry teenager accusing you of having snatched the handset from his uncle in the army.

You imagine you are going to have a fairly good time until you get to the airport and some mean-looking Seven-foot chap grabs your luggage and you have to fork out 10 South Sudanese pounds before he can release it to the guy receiving you.

You are dumb-founded. You do not have local currency, but that is none of his business. You will try to forge a piteous look, but he has probably seen hundreds of sorry faces that your attempt at faking bewilderment will come across as a piece of streetwise playacting. He simply doesn’t mind. Pay him and your luggage will be yours again.

Juba is searing hot and you will be sweating from every pore of your skin by the time you take refuge in some air-conditioned apartment with a noisy generator in the backyard. Somehow you will have to get used to the noise because there is no hydroelectricity and solar is not as commonly used as it should be.

Every once in a while you will hear sporadic gunshots after 10 PM in the night because every rich guy owns a gun. You cannot tell whether someone pissed them or they are doing routine shooting practice. You just don’t wake up and feel safe and secure even if your apartment is a stone’s throw away from the UN apartments on Bilpam road.

Semi-affluent locals here eat meat with bread, but there is variety of Ugandan food if you can find your way around. There are lots of eateries strewn all over the place, housed in makeshift wooden structures. There are hotels, of course, in case you feel like leaving a chunk of your savings in Juba every once in a while.

A number of market stalls sell Ugandan food as well. Like Mama Walcott’s just off the Juba-Nimule road. I could have taken a few shots, but you just do not take photos anyhow in Juba. All government establishments appear to be out of bounds for any irksome wannabe photographer. Once, I almost sent my chauffeur into panic mode when I pulled out my phone to snap at the porous bridge on the Nimule-Juba road.

There are no Visa ATMs in Juba. You have to carry all the money you need with you and hope it will be enough. There are no forex bureaus either. You either settle for the bad bank rates or look for more friendly exchange rates on the black market.

The Ugandan community in Juba is quite big, so you cannot lose your way unless you are some 15^th Century hermit. Once in a while, you will bump into Balaam Barugahara wearing one of his 15,000 orange T-shirts.

09^th October found me at the Ugandan ambassador’s residence. Every year, Ugandan professionals in South Sudan meet at his place to have their own version of independence celebrations. People meet, make merry and dance to Ugandan music.

For a moment, you imagine you are breathing Ugandan air until people start sneaking out after 9 PM. Then it finally hits you. You are approaching the wrong hours. You are better off holed up in your apartment or else you will have to make it to your place like a commando.

I had overheard someone narrate one of his nocturnal experiences the previous week and you could still sense the fear in his speech. On the fateful night, he was stopped by an AK47-weilding guy near one of the junctions that lead out of the city.

The AK47 man then did a thorough security check on his garments, relieved him of his wallet’s contents before letting him proceed with his journey. But he was the lucky one. Others had not been that fortunate. One was forced to give someone a lift, only for him to be murdered along the way and his car taken.

Another – a Caucasian expatriate working with one of the telecom firms – once had his spectacles stomped on and crushed by an army guy after the latter was asked to assist and pick an item our short buddy could not reach, on the upper shelf of one supermarket. He instantly regained his vision and left the country. He has never resurfaced since.

But it’s not always gloom in the South Sudanese capital. Juba has another side to it. There are sprouting buildings at almost every corner. My chauffeur tells me some of these are owned by Ethiopians, Eritreans and some Ugandans among others.

A quick look at these reveals a number of mushrooming salons and massage parlors too, mostly run by Kenyans. I checked a few of them of them and the service was excellent. By default, they speak Swahili to anyone that does not look like South Sudanese.

"You see that lady over there", said my chauffeur, pointing to a light skinned lady that had just zoomed past us in a pearl white Toyota Nadia. "She used to be a low-end hooker back in the day. She is Ethiopian. She must have finally hit a jackpot with some Sudanese general". He tells me Ethiopian prostitutes sell like hot cakes because South Sudanese are smitten by their cute faces and light complexion.

We once stopped by a traffic cop on one of the morning trips to the workplace.  He muttered some Arabic to our chauffeur before checking on his driving license and signing off with a phrase that sounded like tamam. It was not the first time I was hearing this word, so I asked him what the traffic cop wanted with him.

"He wanted to see my rukhsa (driving license). These traffic cops can sometimes mean to waste our time", he goes on, rather absentmindedly. He tells me tamam is Arabic for any of well, good, or okay. It is sometimes smuggled into formal English conversations. So if you ever happen to be in Juba and someone asks you if things are tamam, don’t give them a blank stare.

Dan A.

Poetry | The African

I once met a fellow African,

A graying civil servant in Blantyre in Malawi

“Muli Bwanji?” he asked.

“I am fine, thank you”, I said.

For I thought I heard him say “Muli Bulungi?”

He smiled once more, and away he walked!

I once met a fellow African,

A fine young bloke on the streets of Kigali in Rwanda;

Said his name was Gakuru,

Are you a twin? I asked,

“Yes, I am”, he said,

My relatives in Western Uganda would call him “Kakuru”.

I once met a fellow African,

A beautiful, light skinned daughter of Eve;

Walking barefoot in the Congolese town of Bukavu

Strapped to her back was a wailing baby.

“Tika Kolela”, she said, gently patting the young one’s back.

“Kulira” is the verb, for our Basoga brothers in Uganda

I once met a jolly African,

A six-foot tall South African man who said he was Zulu.

He had seen me talk on phone and heard something familiar.

What do call a girl in your language? He asked.

“Omwishiki”, I told him.

“Itshitshi” is the name in mine, he said.

I once told a fellow African,

You don’t go to Kinshasa and pray to “Ngai” because you are Kikuyu.

“Ngai”, the name you gave your God, refers to the pronoun – “Me” – in Lingala!

You don’t visit Kampala and greet your guests with “Ambolo”,

Your “Hello” in Boulou translates to male genitalia in Luganda!

“Mai” is to water in Lingala, as it is to “Mother” in Lumasaba.

From Taiwo and Kehinde in Yorubaland,

To Wasswa and Kato in Buganda;

From Madalitso and Mabvuto in Chinyanja,

To Opio and Ocen in Luo;

The special names we give our twins!

The names that remind us of our heritage!

It makes you want to scream in awe of your new discovery;

But you remember we are bound by race.

With different norms and cultures, yet still so related!

Brought together by destiny; united in our diversity.

And so we continue to smile and hug and make merry;

Every time we meet a fellow African!

© Dan A. | 2015

Prose | Gumbo The Drunk

He is unmarried. He has no permanent job. But it’s not like he is really bothered. At 30, life may not have many more surprises in store for a man who has grown up in the village, had a stint in the city and seen his life go full circle.

Gumbo, as we fondly called him, has resigned to going through the motions for the rest of his life. But he is one of the few fulltime countryside residents one can trust to run a few private errands.   

He is one guy you will send on an errand and be sure to have your message delivered. He does lots of other things. Small chores he does at a small fee. For the moment, that keeps him going.

As a swashbuckling teenager, he was taken by a relative to a rich friend’s home in the city to work as an in-house servant. It was from here that he mastered a good number of chores that many of peers back home can only fumble at.

In his free time – plenty of which he has – Gumbo will do just about anything. From hunting down birds off tree tops using a hand-made catapult, to just bumming around. Sometimes he goes missing for days, only to resurface looking knackered and hungry and disheveled.  

He will say he ran into one of his long lost relatives who lives 5 kilometers away and paid him a visit. He will have walked that distance and spent the next couple of days having fun in the guy’s orchard, feasting on pawpaw, passion fruits and apples. It is his way of having adventure.

His head is full of stories. Tales about the great, rich men he had seen and heard of. He ranks everyone in the village from the wealthiest to the poorest. Having a lot of time on his hands also means that he has access to a lot of countryside gossip.

One time he will tell you how neighbor X is running broke, and how another is having the time of his life. He is the guy who breaks the news first if one of the rich neighbors buys a new car.

His classification of the wealthy has two distinct categories; the rich and the filthy rich. Those who live in concrete and brick walled houses are rich. Those who own cars are filthy rich, he says. It is just that simple. Gumbo did not go to school, and has no idea about such complexities like assets and bank balance. He just sees you and sees the value of wealth written on your face.

He looks at you and imagines you carried along some loose change. Money that – according to him – is surplus to your budget and ought to given to him for a pint of gin.

And so he walks up to you with this rehearsed gesture, wearing a wide grin before he breaks into a mischievous giggle. He regurgitates some stale conversation that you had some two years back. He thinks he is good at scheming for his potential prey.

He imagines you will marvel at his great memory. He pictures the kind of impression he is going to strike. You suspect he thinks of himself as some sort of intellectual. So the chat goes on and on. Most times, the duration will depend on the circumstances in which he finds you.

He will join in if he finds you in the middle of some mundane chore. It is one sure way he’ll earn something off you. He will still stick around if he finds you unoccupied. And the idle talk will go on and on until he appears to have run of saliva.

When he rises to say his goodbyes, he does so with one eye on your face and another on your pocket, often letting out a grin if he sees your hand slip into your pocket. The size of the grin will depend on what or rather how much you pull out. Sometimes he will just sulk.

What does he use the money for?

Booze.

It’s mainly Waragi, a local gin that takes him to the skies in the shortest time possible. That way, he saunters back home a happy man, having spent very little and gotten so much on the night. He sings the blues on his way home. It’s his way of killing boredom.

Often times, his is more of a sermon. A drunken sermon. It is the moment to pour his heart out. On and on he goes, talking just about anyone he interacted with during the course of the week.

It is here that those who are in his bad books will get their bashing. He raps them for being bad friends. Bad, ill-mannered friends who are only stingy at best. He calls them hypocrites who only call him when they need his help, and ditch him when they have been sorted.

You will get honorable mention if you are in his good books. You are accorded a huge chunk of airtime during his raucous 2-kilometer walk back home. Suddenly, everyone in the village knows you are back to the village and you are loaded because you bought him beer.

This is detrimental to you, in a way. The set up in the countryside is such that most middle-class folks normally spend a big chunk of the year working their socks off in the city, often coming back to the countryside homes a couple of times a year.

Each of those trips comes with a lot of baggage and expectation from the folks that will claim to have prayed for your success. You are likely to run into acquaintances with truckloads of gossip, trying to earn your favor. You are certain to meet expectant preteen faces at whose christening you played godfather when they were still runny-nosed, petulant toddlers.

Their parents will have coached them on how to approach and greet their uncles (every potential benefactor is an uncle) and (sometimes) act humble and needy. When Gumbo sings your praises during his evening trek, you are certain to find a good number of these gathered at your doorstep the following morning.

Lumped on the porch with their eyes continuously blinking against the bright morning sun-rays, they sit and wait patiently. When you finally arrive, they give you the kind of piteous look you wish to show your landlord when your rent is due and you have not got your salary yet because the boss forgot to sign the cheque before he left for a month's holiday in Mauritius.

You have to sort them out in a way. It is the usual routine – ask for performance reports for the school going lot and fork out some about $5 for them to buy a few scholastic materials. Off they scatter as soon the “facilitation” has exchanged hands. There is no pretense.

Gumbo doesn’t like the sight of these, for they, sure, are going to eat away a portion of what you should have given him to sing your praises for another couple of days. But he is civil enough not to openly put his chagrin on show. Or rather he is not charged enough to show his angry side. So he lets it slide.

He rarely loses his temper when he is sober. But he will erupt once a drop of liquor has made its way down his throat. He is going to meet a parent of one of those early morning schemers and he will give them a dress down.

He is calculative. He’ll employ his old approach of exchanging pleasantries before running his script. Blackmail. He will tell them how instrumental he was, in securing the $5 their son conned off his boss.

He is scheming for a small percentage of that amount, something close to the equivalent of about 20 cents. Long story short, the unlucky parent forks out the 20 cents, and Gumbo walks away a happy man. The one who does not buy his vibe becomes the subject that evening’s rant.

He only befriends the affluent. The rest are just acquaintances. He keeps a cool circle of families around him, ensuring a regular supply of alms. From worn-out utensils and shoes that have run their course levels to old garments in an average middle income family.

But he is wary of any potential fall-outs. He knows one day he will wake up and he is no longer needed in one of his rich buddies’ homes. So he keeps sourcing for new friends.

“You see that Nelson?” he tells Morgan, son to his latest wealthy buddy. “He was once my good friend when he was younger. His late dad was my good friend too. Those trees he is always cutting down to make charcoal. I planted them with his dad. He was still a young boy. He was too young to understand these things.”

“But he cut off our ties when his dad died. Now he just sells the charcoal and runs to the city to pay fees and have fun with young girls in the city. He cannot even think of buying me a beer. Yet he is feasting on my sweat. Please don’t be like him when you grow old and become rich”, he goes on.

Morgan is a 16-year old high school student who just came back to the village for his second term holidays. He rarely stays in the village, so Gumbo is the only person he easily associates with. Morgan just nods in agreement to Gumbo’s plea. A verbal pact is made.

Gumbo has just made a pact with his newest buddy. Morgan becomes the subject of his blues “jazz session” that evening. That holiday Gumbo takes Morgan to the hilly part of the countryside. Together, they do a tour of all the land on which Morgan’s dad is doing farming. Fragmented as the pieces are, from every valley to hill and back, Morgan is shown every single piece of land his dad owns.

And so it becomes a routine. Every school term break finds Morgan in the village. He looks for Gumbo every once in a while when he gets bored. Morgan knows Gumbo will be itching for something small to keep him going. So he saves a small portion of his pocket money to grease his palm. It’s a pact that will last forever, Gumbo thinks.

Gumbo continues to heap praises on Morgan every time he is excited (read tipsy). Maybe his bar patrons are even jealous of him. His friends at the local bar have never met Morgan. But they have heard of him. They have no idea how he looks like, but they know he is a rich man’s son – which means he has some money of his own.

It’s now two years since the two first became good friends. In the two years, the whole world knows the rich man has a son called Morgan. He doesn’t know he has become a celeb. Morgan is now done with high school, and is enjoying a lot of redundant time in the village. For four long months, he waits for his high school exam results.

March 28^th, 2007. Exam results are out, and Morgan has aced his papers. A local daily carries the lead story. Morgan’s name features on page 2, complete with a passport photograph he took when he still had shaggy hair. It doesn’t matter. His peers still recognize him. He has qualified for government scholarship. Everyone is happy for Morgan. His parents are overjoyed. Gumbo is excited.

Even as illiterate as he is, Gumbo knows getting government sponsorship is a good thing. “Morgan is going to university to get a degree. He will become very rich. He is going to buy a car, and when he comes to the village I will always be sitting by the co-drivers'. You people had better treat me with respect or else I will not let you ride in Morgan’s car”, he tells his peers at the local pub.

Morgan goes to University and fortunately gets a job even before he finishes his studies. He becomes a very busy person as he has to juggle between studies and his new-found job. He wants to excel at both. He wants to earn praises from his boss. At the same time, he wants good grades.

For the first time in his life, Christmas finds him in the city. He cannot make it to the village because of a tight work schedule. Gumbo is disappointed his buddy did not come to the village, but “understands” the situation because he was told that studying at University is not easy.

Towards the end of Morgan’s final University year, gossip reaches the village. Morgan got a job and is already working. Gumbo is elated, and braces himself for a mother of all booze binges when Morgan comes to the village. He still remembers the pact the two made 6 years ago. Morgan is now 22, and he, 36.

Christmas time comes and it’s almost the same scenario as the previous year. This time Morgan sneaks in one Friday night, on the Christmas Eve of 2010. Word goes around that Morgan is around, but Gumbo does not take it serious. His buddy cannot come around and not look for him. He will pass by his home on Sunday to confirm the news.

Sunday Morning, 27 December, 2010. Gumbo makes the short trip to Morgan’s home, only to meet his old friend at the gate. Morgan is on phone, so they don’t talk. He waves to him and musters a smile. Gumbo tries to smile back. Morgan is on his way out, and back to the city. Gumbo thinks he must left something “small” for him at home. Morgan did not leave any message for him, he is told.

This is the last time the two see each other. The following morning, Morgan’s phone rings as he is getting ready for work. At the other end of the phone is his mum.

Gumbo is dead!

What?! How? What happened - was he sick?

No. He was last seen at 11PM, in a bar with a couple of friends. He appeared a little pensive. He took several shorts of gin, but he looked fine.

Then what?

He did not sing the blues that night. He quietly left by himself and went to his mum’s house.

And then?

His mum says they exchanged pleasantries and went straight to bed. Normal routine. In the morning he could not be woken up for breakfast. He had died in his sleep.

Morgan recalls the pact. That verbal agreement, made one sweaty afternoon after a trip to the hills, all of six years back. Could his friend have been depressed?  Could it have been a case of suicide?

The Pact, Morgan reflects.

He has become another Nelson. The Nelson Gumbo had always told him about. The same Nelson who betrayed Gumbo long before he became friends with Morgan. Guilt sets in. 

Dan A.

Culture | Homonyms (2)

We are continuing with our series on homonyms, or what some people call homophones.

In Chinyanja (Malawi/Zambia), the verb “Kugona” means “To sleep”, while in Runyankole/Rukiga (Western Uganda) it refers to “To snore”.

In Swahili, the verb “Kucheza” is “to play/joke”. In Chichewa, it may also be used to mean “gossip”.

In Kinyarwanda, the noun “ubuzima” refers to health. In Runyankole/Rukiga(Western Uganda) a similar word – “obuzima” actually means honesty.

In runyoro-rutooro (Western Uganda), the word Ekitabu may mean a bed, while the same is strictly used to refer to a bed in the rest of the Bantu languages (It has its origins in Arabic: Kitab for book).

In lusoga, “ndala/mulala” means one/lone/sole, while it means “another” in Luganda (central Uganda). For example, the sentence: Yali muntu mulala may mean:  He was one person. In Luganda, it may mean: He was a different person.

Dan A.