Yesterday I uncovered the fabulous world of Amazon to my south sudanese colleagues..
And today I have a story about that, of course.
It all started yesterday, when one of them came to me with his laptop. He showed me the screen where I saw a picture of an e-reader. He told me: I want to read novels on that.
The working day was over, thank God, cause I knew we were gonna be there for a while.
So i started with the obvious differentiation between a laptop and a tablet. I said, well first you buy the tablet and then you create your account which you will then use to purchase e-books.
His reply: I don't get you (the most used expression here which simply means I don't understand a single word of what you have just said). Fair enough, I used very difficult concepts, it's like explaining to your grandma how facebook works (I remember when I did that some time ago. She was all like: who is writing on whose wall? why?... HILARIOUS).
Anyways I realized that the real problem was the explanation of how to purchase online.
I do it so many times and so automatically that it seems quite obvious to me. Apparently it's not so easy here.
First (and actually also the only) of his problems was: how do you buy books with these tablets? Answer: well you create an account with an email and a password. Then you need to give an address... hold on. Huge problem: there are no addresses here and South Sudan is not even in the drop down list as country of residence. Ok so you can use Uganda or Kenya. (same goes for the phone number...). then they need a credit card number. Well needless to say that banks here are not so modern. one of them (which is Kenyan) issues cards which can be used at ATMs (yes there are some here) to withdraw money. half of the time these ATMS don't work because "the system is down" (standard excuse in the banks when things dont work) So it's a total disaster. my ultimate solution was use an address in Uganda and someone else's credit card but you can obviously see how this is not so very practical.
bottom line: after I gave him all these instructions he took his laptop and went back home, quite sad and hopeless. He knew he could have never done any of these things and he could not read his novels on the tablet.
I just started thinking how easy it is for us to get stuff shipped all over the places, use technology how we please, pay online and buy pretty much whatever and here the only address you can give is : under the mango tree, after the bridge, second hut on the left...
still a long way to go!!
And today I have a story about that, of course.
It all started yesterday, when one of them came to me with his laptop. He showed me the screen where I saw a picture of an e-reader. He told me: I want to read novels on that.
The working day was over, thank God, cause I knew we were gonna be there for a while.
So i started with the obvious differentiation between a laptop and a tablet. I said, well first you buy the tablet and then you create your account which you will then use to purchase e-books.
His reply: I don't get you (the most used expression here which simply means I don't understand a single word of what you have just said). Fair enough, I used very difficult concepts, it's like explaining to your grandma how facebook works (I remember when I did that some time ago. She was all like: who is writing on whose wall? why?... HILARIOUS).
Anyways I realized that the real problem was the explanation of how to purchase online.
I do it so many times and so automatically that it seems quite obvious to me. Apparently it's not so easy here.
First (and actually also the only) of his problems was: how do you buy books with these tablets? Answer: well you create an account with an email and a password. Then you need to give an address... hold on. Huge problem: there are no addresses here and South Sudan is not even in the drop down list as country of residence. Ok so you can use Uganda or Kenya. (same goes for the phone number...). then they need a credit card number. Well needless to say that banks here are not so modern. one of them (which is Kenyan) issues cards which can be used at ATMs (yes there are some here) to withdraw money. half of the time these ATMS don't work because "the system is down" (standard excuse in the banks when things dont work) So it's a total disaster. my ultimate solution was use an address in Uganda and someone else's credit card but you can obviously see how this is not so very practical.
bottom line: after I gave him all these instructions he took his laptop and went back home, quite sad and hopeless. He knew he could have never done any of these things and he could not read his novels on the tablet.
I just started thinking how easy it is for us to get stuff shipped all over the places, use technology how we please, pay online and buy pretty much whatever and here the only address you can give is : under the mango tree, after the bridge, second hut on the left...
still a long way to go!!
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