The phone is here to stay…

The phone is here to stay…

By Namwene Mukabwa

Just imagine age-long sayings like “as faithful as a dog” being replaced with the 21st Century                   creations such as “as faithful as a mobile phone!” I bet the latter would make more sense to anyone      regardless of their location as opposed to the        former especially in a generation where some        offspring of our species cannot differentiate           between a dog and a goat! If you haven’t read        between the lines, don’t worry, just revisit Sir. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution-with a mirror before you- and you might just realize that you are not to blame!

Indeed, the 21st Century has been phenomenal, the mobile phone not withstanding. Ever since the     discovery of this gadget by one brilliant Dr. Martin Cooper, life has never been the same for billions of people across the world. I was thinking about the faithfulness of this gadget and crazy comparisons crossed my mind. Sweetheart, I am sorry if you are reading this but for a second, yours truly compared you, with his “mulika mwizi” phone. If I publish the findings, I know my fate with you will have been determined.

I am not sure what I have is what Dr. Cooper had in mind when he invented the phone, but I know I trust my phone with everything of mine. I trust it with all my secret conversations. I trust it with all my text messages-allowed and forbidden. I trust it with my coded information. I trust part of my       finances with it. It wakes me up to go for the early morning class. I know, with my phone, I am just  seconds away from the people I love. Sometimes I get a sense of security just by having this gadget as “getting lost” is out of my mind. Because of my “mulika mwizi” my current relationship seems to be working thanks to the reminder which does         miracles about “important” days in her life like birthdays, Valentine’s Day, anniversaries!

My friend Njoro, a classmate, confides in me over the phone that he has saved his “side-kick” as “MPESA” and therefore goes scot-free with text messages   emanating from the clandestine association.     Agreeing with him is Joan, a second year student in the School of Human Resource  Development who says that saving her School of Engineering boyfriend as “Battery low” beats his classmate-boyfriend’s  prying eyes!

Stanley, my roommate, discloses that losing his     current phone could amount to robbery as all his vital ATM PINs are saved there. Some of my        classmates cannot do 2-3 minutes without a social   network-2Go, Facebook, casual dating, tweeter, qeep, MySpace among others. Albert, one such             classmate, does not have real friends other than the online ones. My “mulika mwizi” on the other hand, cannot access the social networks but that does not deter me from “chatting.” I send text messages in real time and they are responded to the same way. Mobile phone service providers have heard the plight of yours truly by lowering the cost of sending text messages.

This small gadget can actually walk you through bleak moments including boring lectures and       assignments. I wonder what a 2011 CPR student would do in a CPR class of 1991! I cannot figure out another source of information to an assignment that is due the following day given the few and           sometimes irrelevant books in our MTL!

Courtesy of this gadget, I don’t waste time going to a friend’s room when he or she is not there. For those who have been here long enough, what do you think of “bei ya campo?” It should be back!