I research. Make a spreadsheet. Delete a line item. Add a column. Read reviews. That’s I how make travel plans. So when it came to my phone I thought I was good. I called Verizon; they emailed me international options. I read the fine print online. Called again. Confirmed. Decided I would probably gonna get a prepaid phone when I arrive. Sawa sawa (“okay” in Swahili).
The first night I leave my phone in airplane mode to avoid the $2.99/minute talk, billion dollar/GB data fees. Other volunteers skipped the prepaid phones and chose SIM cards or modems. I’ll figure this out, I told myself.
Second day, after orientation, a few of us go to the local telecom shop. Need your passport to get a SIM card, the man says. No one brought it with them. Super. Friday and my thumb muscles are starting to atrophy from lack of scrolling and double tapping. I go to the local Safaricom shop WITH my passport. Woman behind the counter said the people who authorize those are out of the office until Monday. Eyebrows go up. Eyes bug out. (Lady, I cannot go one more day sans internet). The farther out I am the more desperate I am for it.
So I take my phone off airplane mode as a temporary fix. 3G pops in the corner. Sawa sawa. The Uber map won’t render. The pin drop is on Nairobi but Africa is a blue box, not a proper continent. Excellent. Incoming messages are delayed. Outbound messages are flagged with red exclamation marks – underliverable. ☠️ I was under my mosquito drifting into digital exile. Words like spoiled, brat, privledge, and excesss start beating on the door of my psyche.
Saturday morning, the other volunteer and I are in a taxi at 6:15am headed to the Junction Mall in Nairobi. I walk through the metal detectors, Security checks my backpack and I’m in. At the Safaricom shop I find another another security guard. “What service do you need?”, she asks. SIM card, puhleez. She types into a miniature kiosk and prints my queue number. It’s like the DMV for phones. Ninety seconds later I’m at the counter choosing data plans and removing my existing card. Mary J. Blige kicks in over the speakers:
No time for moping around, are you kidding?
And no time for negative vibes, cause I’m winning
It’s been a long week, I put in my hardest…
You see I wouldn’t change my life, my life’s just…Fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, ooooh
Lyrics from Genius.
Next…elephants.
The Jam 