Thus Spaketh Idd Salim

Kampala

It is said that Kenyans are emotional wrecks with delusions of grandeur. Tanzanians are haters. And Ugandans are beautiful and kind.

So, in  my unrelenting quest to reach absolute mkwanjalization,  I found my-self and my CEO in Kampala, Uganda. We were invited by a clientX to do a systemY. Hotel Africana was our abode and we stayed there for a week.

And then we met the women

They say the more you go towards the WEST of Africa, the more beautiful women become. The opposite is the same for men.  And so, on Tuesday night, our host decided we must go and see Kampala. Not just code.

So we went to StakeOut for Campus night (Super Tuesdays). I was on the pool table as always beating up any would-be challengers and everywhere I looked, I saw someone I would have described as THE MOST beautiful thing I have ever seen. I immediately wanted to impregnate her. Then another one passed by and made the former look like Windows 95. Such is Kampala! Ugandan women make Kenyan women look like a trial version of the female species. A demo beta test.

Technically Speaking, All UG women have a GREAT booty-sector (every Ugandan Woman is said to have a big future behind her). They are user-friendly and backward compatible. Most get spoilt by the Kla life and become Open-source, Multi-user and Shareware, but it is rare to get any FreeWare unless your kernel is as updated as mine.

Due to their user-friendliness, you are always warned against logging in (even for just a temporary guest session) to any ports they open. They always have some spyware that can penetrate even the most lubricated and hardened latex firewalls.

These women are equipped with a nice rack-space. god was generous. No wonder Uganda is gifted by nature.

Due to my matrimonial vows, I never got to test this theory, but it is said that Ugandan women have a surround system that is guaranteed to keep the neighbor awake as long as you are inserting the CDs properly while tuning and mixxing her properly. Whether portable officeware, Amorphous Mainframes, Clande 286es, just a simple quick switching proxy, you are guaranteed satisfaction.

Some/most UG gals care about their user interface so much that they will mostly dual-boot and run alot of background processes to make sure their needs are taken care of. You will find them preemptively multitasking to make sure their assets have the optimal RoI.

The fortunate/unfortunate thins about the UG gals is that they are very very user-friendly. They run a simple plug-n-pray interface and mostly have ONE master administrator account, but many privileged guest sessions. This in a way negates the admin confidence, but it makes the beautiful country happy.

Back to code!

Wazi.

Ni kama mapenzi yamekwisha

Yes. We know. This is Kenya. Might is right and even if you can bite, you don’t stand a chance in a fight.

It does not matter what you know and what you can do. What matters is who you know and who you can do.

That is why we have a city full of muggers who can code or have a degree in Nursing and PR. Errr…Ok, I meant ‘program’.. not code.

Real coders don’t like humans anyway.

And so it came to pass. Safaricom is finally feeling the brunt. They must have really borrowed all 10 leaves from this tree.

Once upon a time (in 2002-2003), Safaricom came to the Market and met Zain (in campus, hot and called KenCell then). KenCell was termed as a network for the rich. Per minute billing and all. KSHS 28 per minute.

Safaricom came in and flashed her thighs and sumptuous cleavage with Per Second Billing and the peculiar Kenyans jumped on her like flies on a carcass. Like they say, the rest is history.

Delusions of Grandeur

Now, 8 years later, Safaricom our once-faithful lover and mother of a few of our adopted/plagiarized kids like Sambaza, Mpesa, WhoCalled, Mkesho etc, has started to act as if on Menopause. She is suddenly feeling too big and too hot for the small person and we no longer go home. We, nowadays, sleep at the office and pass by Mrs Zain’s place on our way home, if we get back home. Home is no longer the abode.

Why has our relationship become so bad, Dr Marriage Counselor asks. Well here is how, DrMC.

Abusive Relationships and Rip-Offs

DrMC, When I have money on Mpesa, and I use it to buy airtime, that is NOT recognized as legit airtime. I never get the 50% top-up bonuses, Internet bundle discounts etc that I might get on promos when I use a scratchcard. It is as if airtime via MPESA is NOT my money.

Too Scandalous

DrMC, she never gets enough. Today she was seen shamelessly smooching with mXit while local developers have better and more local solutions. But since when you go black, you don’t go back, when she wants to go local, she wants to rob our local developers blind using one-sided NDAs and Terms. Check yesterday’s Sunday Nation and they are being sued over stealing mKesho from another local. Karma is a b#$ch.

Forgetting the small person

DrMC, Safaricom is Safaricom because of the Bamba 10, bamba 20 and Bamba 5 airtimes. They were perceived as the network for the poor and low-spenders. Now she has gone to Westlands a few times and hanged out with ballers and she no longer values the small person. The small person now gets PUNISHED for topping up using small unites. Totally discriminative against the poor. This is even against our new constitution. Zain and YU on the other hand, welcome us all with open-arms and open-legs irrespective of our pocket size. Size does not matter to them. It is the thought that counts.

Chronically unreliable

You never know when or IF she will be at home nowadays. You might think that after the exodus of subscribers to YU and Zain, she would behave a bit since there is no network load. But Ohh no, not our beloved Safcom. She is too big and fly for that. Still we cant access customer care number, we are still treated as horny beggars when we go to their customer-service kiosks. The Mpesa system still experiences time-outs and has no up-time guarantee.

DrMC, I have had enough and thanks to my prenapse, she will get nothing once I finally sign these divorce papers. Zain and YU currently satisfy all my SMS and Call needs and even though their data-package is still wanting, I will persevere for a few months for them to get 3G.

Back to code!

Wazi.

Kenyans will believe ANYTHING!

So, yesterday after coding from 9am to 10PM, I was just chilling and billing while waiting for the killing as I continue my money-machining.

I decided to watch a comedy as a warm-down. I slotted Michael McIntyre Wembley DVD and as i laughed my glutes off,  I logged to on 2go as went to the Nairobi chat room.

Normally, there are over 40+ chatters heres. Only 13 guys were there in this night. Strange. “Ohh well, they must be on the Kenya room”, I thought. I adjusted my crouch and switched to the Kenya room. 10 people in Kenya room!

Hmmmn… Why are people offline today? I wondered. Could they all have finally got hook-ups and were on “Masaa ya Kubambwa na kushikwashikwa’? All at once?

I was feeling social and all chatty. Living in a big house all by myself can be a very lonely ordeal sometimes. So I decided to call someone, whisper sweet nothings to her, then sleep. I checked my airtime on my Zain Line, and it took 2 SMSes for my credit balance to be sent to me. Too many zeros. #LotsaMoney!

My friend picked up the call. Real FEAR in her voice. ‘Salim, is that you?’, She asked. ‘No, it is the gay oogambooga boogie man from Timbuktu!’, I answered in my indian-patel-robot voice. (am very good in voices. Indian, Somali, Kamba, Alien and Robot). Clang!! She hang up! This hot mamsilla never hangs up on Salim. She knows my number and my swagger. So, I called again. She did not pick up. I sent her a sweet SMS and called. She asked me to check out Facebook.

I checked Facebook and was confused. Then I called her and I was enlightened.

“There are these guys who are calling people and if you pick up the calls, you DIE IMMEDIATELY!”, She said. “10 people have died in Ukambani already. They are also using SMS texts to kill people. The phonecalls come from a number ending with 999 or 98 and the number shows as RED on your phone. Even the MulikaMwizi black-and-greed phones phones show the numbers in red. The SMS text is yellow/purple/green on all phones.”

I scrolled through some Facebook posts and was dumbfounded by what I saw.

“Someone on Campo just received such a call!”, one stated, “It is all over Easy FM news. The INSTANT death is caused by radiation.”.

Well, I can send an SMS to your phone that will restart the phone, send an SMS that will self-destruct on a set amount of time, etc.. but COME ON!!

I decided to call random numbers. Just for the kicks. It amazed me how many people had their phones off out of the utter fear of Kifo Pap! My Guys friends (especially the gay ones) and chics either never answered the phone, or answered with real, tangible FEAR reeking out of their breath.

My Gawd! What next? The midnight nipple-nibbler phenomenon? Where a strange man appears in your bedroom in the middle of the night and starts nibbling (well I know people who will relish this), and the only way to top him is to SMS ‘noNibble’ to 6090?

Grow up people! Read a book.

Back to code.