četrtek, 5. januar 2012

Internet (English version)

Today I am in an especially good mood! Finally we succeeded to set up a proper internet connection. Wireless! We used some antennas and routers and… Well what do I know. For me the important thing is that in the morning I was able to read and answer to all my e-mails in matter of minutes. I was even able to read some news from the world. I could finally see all the pictures sent to me by my friends and family. I even talked on the Skyp!

I guess you are thinking now – what is she so happy about, aren't those some normal things? Well for you they are, but I have been struggling for years from day to day, if the internet was even working it was so slow, that I used a whole morning only to write three or four e-mails I was downloading pictures for hours… I did not even bother to try and go to some web page with news from the homeland.

Even before that time I didn't even had internet, so I was walking every day to some internet cafés. Sometimes it was quite nice. Whenever I was walking to Tuba for about a half an hour I was starting to get to know little bits of Africa. Big bushy Mango trees by the dusty red road also the encounters with goats and sheep were in a way interesting (that was after I stop being afraid of them). Here and there I could see a small stand in the middle of nowhere Usually it was some Ghanian »fast food restaurant« or somebody was selling water. What was very interesting to me was the location of the internet café. It was in the middle of nowhere with a mosque close by and a cow farm in front of it. What a contrast!

If I needed a faster internet I had to drive all the way to Accra to Busy internet, which supposed to be the largest internet café in Africa. The road to there was interesting, I drove with tro-tros and taxis and I also liked to walk a part of the way. There was also one good restaurant with European food. Basically I joined together the useful with the pleasant. The only thing it bothered me was that it took me whole day. Still I survived! I’ve answered to all my e-mails even if I was a bit late with the response, And I got a whole bunch of new Facebook friends.

All I can say is – From now on my life will be easier, but not more beautiful because my life here in Ghana was already beautiful as it was.