Internet Mayhem In Zimbabwe

So, you missed me, huh?

I went AWOL because starting Friday, Internet connections in Zimbabwe went haywire.

As is typical of customer service from our Inclusive Government, which believes people must just shut up and bear it, there was no communication whatsoever as to what had gone wrong.

Today, I spoke with the government-owned company that is supposed to be in charge of these things. Here's what they said, verbatim:

"Starting Friday afternoon, something went wrong with base stations and affected ISPs. Because we do not work at weekends, the fault was only found out today, and our people are trying to see what they can do"

"When will we back on line?" I asked the nice lady who attended to me.

"I don't know"

"Can you ask someone who will know, I am willing to wait."

'No one knows. But it will be soon?"

"Three weeks?" I asked.

"No one knows. It affected everybody. It's not just you, lots of people have been phoning and coming in."

To make matters worse, we moved offices at the weekend. Our network guys had everything in place by Sunday, but transferring our lines to the new premises is proving a challenge beyond the capacity of TelOne.

We have been living on promises from TelOne since Friday but nothing happening here.

So right now, I am using a dial-up connection which is so painfully slow that it is not worth the while.

With the launch of the party, I have been so busy that I have not had time to read anything online and even my connections with people I speak to have suffered.

Still, there are three huge events that are brewing in this Inclusive Government, as well as between Mugabe and Tsvangirai that I should update you on once I am back online. I am hoping it will not be that much longer.