Letter from Butiama: Chain letters, old and new

This is one of numerous articles I wrote for the Sunday News (Tanzania) column "Letter from Butiama" between 2005 and 2011.

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When photocopying was the principal means of reproducing documents, it was common to receive a chain letter whose recipient was directed to make several copies and forward the copies to other individuals, usually more than ten, with each of the new recipients expected to carry the chain forward.

The letter warned the recipient of the consequences of ignoring the letter, disclosing a few tragic incidents that befell those who failed to follow the instructions and revealing the fortunes that fell on the laps of those who followed the instructions.

Secretarial bureaus made brisk business reproducing the chain letters, until a conspiracy theorist suggested that chain letters originated from photocopy salesmen (very few women were in sales-related occupations in those days), and paper merchants who wanted to stimulate sales of their products. No mention is made of members of the Universal Postal Union whose national postal systems also benefited by conveying a large volume of chain letters.

With the advent of new technologies, the chain letter was transformed to take advantage of the newer means of communication. When the information superhighway opened up to traffic, variations of the traditional chain letter began to circulate in the form of e-mail messages. The photocopier salesmen were probably now also selling computers, and it is likely the former paper merchants had switched to production of ‘electronic paper’, such as computer diskettes and CD’s. And it would not be out of character for both of them to have acquired stakes in the cyber café’ business.

Users of technology are simultaneously trying to keep up with the pace of changes in technology, and remain sane at the same time. Getting tomorrow’s information yesterday is considered the only way that one can be ahead of the rest. People are in a rush; they need to make decisions as they walk, as they drive, as they eat. They have to be connected all the time; a fact which seems not to have escaped the attention of the salesman-merchant duo. The electronic chain letter of the Internet has now found its way into the mobile phone system.

In this fast-paced world where time is a most precious commodity and it is becoming even wasteful for someone to sit in front of a personal computer to answer his electronic chain letter, some companies have already devised a way to accomplish the same task through the mobile phone. To others, the chain letter has become the chain short message (sms).

I received one such chain sms on my phone on 29th May* informing me it was ‘World Best Friends Day’. I was urged to forward the text to my friends, including the sender of the message, if I considered him to be my friend, and then wait to discover whether the message will go through a loop and get back to me. The message said if I get only 7 responses I should consider myself a likeable person. I sent out more than seven messages to people who I seriously consider my friends, but it seems they have a different opinion of me. Not one of them sent a return message. They must know a lot more about that old chain letter conspiracy theory.

Not all chain text messages have such an innocent character. Some contain false promises. One message which surfaced last December and purporting to originate from one of the cellular phone companies promised those who swallowed the bait some free airtime if they forwarded a text message which had public service content.

When I received mine, I called the company’s customer service centre where a customer service representative said his company had nothing to do with the text message, adding that the company’s text messages to subscribers originated from a particular number which can easily be identified.

Would it possible for his company, I suggested, to send out a text message to caution subscribers against participating in that misleading chain. He did not think that was a good idea because it would cost his company some money. He could not understand how some clients were falling prey to such trivial pranks. I suggested it was easy for him to discover those anomalies but the average client is not like him. He agreed with me. Yes, the average Tanzanian client was not like him. In fact, the average Kenyan subscriber was not as gullible as a Tanzanian one, he told me.

I suggested to him that while he continued to argue subscribers were losing money needlessly. I conservatively estimated that within an hour of sending out the first infamous message, and assuming those receiving the message carried the chain forward, his company earned forty million shillings in revenue from the chain messages alone, not to mention the phone calls many had made to other subscribers to warn them of the misleading message.

The customer sales representative finally reluctantly accepted my suggestion, and said he would talk to his supervisor. In fact, two days later a subscriber from Arusha told me she had received a text message from the cellular phone company disassociating itself from the chain text message.

In today’s fast-paced world where a possible forty million shillings can be earned by the company and lost by its subscribers within an hour, two days is a millennium.

*2005

Postscript: One wonders whether it would have taken the company 48 hours to stem a loss of 40 million shillings per hour.

Butiama's Wildlife

There is a variety of wildlife around Butiama. Some are resident, others are not.

I have not been able to identify this bird which appears for several days every year and comes back to the same tree outside my bedroom window every year. I suspect it is a migrating bird from Europe heading somewhere to breed.

Butiama has a large colony of monkeys that resides in the Muhunda ancestral forest. During the day they spend time wandering and foraging for food. If one leaves a door open, they can even venture inside a

house. A keen observer will notice that this one is a female, identified by the bulge on the chest.

The rock hyrax has short legs and a proportionally large body, but is extremely fast on those tiny feet and jumps with ease from one rock formation to the next.

The genetic composition of this animal is closely associated with an elephant’s.

Once when a man collapsed after suffering from a stroke it was a group of hyrax that raised the alarm. Their persistent cries drew the curiosity of another person who approached and discovered the man who was later taken to hospital and survived.

And then there are snakes….Unfortunately, I always forget to take photographs of the few snakes I come across.

Mwalimu Nyerere Charity Climb 2008 update: Sponsors' List

Mwalimu Nyerere Charity Climb 2008 update: Sponsors' List

Curreny Abbreviations
Pound Sterling £
Tanzanian Shilling TZS

Total Raised so far £420 and TZS 100,000


Sponsors' List: Village Education Project Kilimanjaro (VEPK)
Vince Robbins £25
Kathleen Bolger £25
Brent and Darlene Bolger £100
Nancy Fairbarn £50
Torin Macpherson £50
Karen Versluys £20
Joan Sarazin £50
Global Resource Alliance £100

Sponsors' List: Chief Edward Wanzagi Girls' Secondary School (CEWGSS)
Milton J. Nyerere TZS 100,000

Thank you for your donations.

Public forum on Mwalimu Nyerere

The Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Research Chair in Pan-African Studies is hosting the following event on 8th July at the University of Dar es Salaam. The information is provided courtesy of Chambi Chachage.

Public Forum on Mwalimu Julius Nyerere

Thinking with Mwalimu Nyerere: Reflections and Reminiscences

By Ikaweba Bunting and Walter Bgoya

Facilitated by Issa Shivji

On
Tuesday 8 July 2008
(3.00 – 5.00 pm)

At

Council Chamber - University of Dar-es-Salaam (UDSM)

Organized by
Mwalimu Julius Nyerere Research Chair in Pan-African Studies

Letter From Butiama: Afraid? No, Just Apprehensive

This is one of numerous articles I wrote for the Sunday News (Tanzania) column "Letter from Butiama" between 2005 and 2011.

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I classify myself as a person who does not fear but feels apprehensive about flying in airplanes, a person who believes that land-based modes of transport, especially walking, are safer. Unfortunately for me and many other aircraft passengers, when traveling long distances, air travel is the only sensible option.

I have my anxious moments during a flight, mostly during take-offs. After that, my heartbeats resume their normal pace at between 70 and 72 beats per minute. At cruising speed I relax, but during landings I become anxious once more, but less if I can see the runway - which explains why I am more comfortable flying in small planes.

Those who study and treat mental disorders say the fear of flying is an ailment. It is a phobia, an irrational fear that cannot be justified based on the available facts, and yet I see nothing irrational in having a preference to be on the “life” side of a “life or death” situation.

The unfounded fear of some object or situation, including the fear of flying, affect some five out of every 1,000 persons. Therapists say that sufferers need only be logical and will realize there is really nothing to fear. Consider this: How many road accidents and their fatalities do we read of in Tanzania each year? Maybe thousands. How many air crashes and their fatalities do we read of in Tanzania each year? A few every year, perhaps none in some years.

There is no doubt that there are more people dying from Malaria in Tanzania than from air crashes, but I doubt I will ever come across someone whose pulse will jump and perhaps will be forced to empty down his throat a few bottles of lager to calm down his nerves at the prospect of facing a mosquito. We are told if we were rational, we would realize that, from a statistical standpoint, a comfortable seat on a Mwanza – Dar flight is a far less dangerous situation than an encounter with a mosquito.

Unfortunately, the human being is the most irrational of animals, capable of thinking up the most improbable of situations like “What if the ‘fuel attendant’ at Mwanza airport mistakenly refueled my plane with diesel instead of jet fuel? Will the plane take off, and if it does, will it remain in the air? For how long?”

There are a number of measures that can be taken to reduce the anxiety of air travelers like me. First, clear airports of debris from accidents. If you fly in and out of Mwanza airport you may have noticed there are pieces of plane wreckage from past crashes. I have always wondered why any passenger would want to be reminded of a plane crash each time he boards a plane at Mwanza. When desperately trying to forget something, the last thing you want is to have it permanently displayed in front of your eyes.

Second, if there are any passengers like me out there, they would prefer to have a minute-by-minute account by the flight captain of every move she makes so that they can assess what is normal during a flight and when they should justifiably begin to panic. Minute-by-minute is perhaps too much, but let’s say just enough reassuring information along the way to prevent illogical minds like ours to be invaded by irrational thoughts.

Third – this might sound unreasonable although I can say from experience that it can be important to some passengers – is that airlines should consider sponsoring swimming lessons for would-be passengers to help some passengers gain confidence during flights.

I was a passenger in an internal Mozambique Airlines flight in 1988 from Maputo to Beira that developed a “technical fault” soon after take off. The pilot decided to fly back to Maputo and we spent about an hour circling over Maputo and dumping fuel while flying overland in a southerly direction and over the Indian Ocean in a northerly direction.

Most passengers were anxiously awaiting the landing at Maputo but a passenger seated next to me was particularly anxious each time we flew over the Ocean. After the steward gave instructions on using the life jacket, her nerves could not contain her worry anymore and she asked me, “Can you teach me how to swim?” I think I told her I needed some water for the swimming lessons, and it is only after we landed safely did her request seem outrageous to me.

If you have read one of my previous articles in this column* you would wonder how someone who wants to fly a plane should be apprehensive about sitting in one as a passenger. Do I find it contradictory that most car drivers I know would rather be behind the steering wheel than ride as a passenger? No, I don’t.

*Letter from Butiama in the Sunday News (Tanzania)