Africa Is Tough

It's often said by gung-ho Saffers, as they nonchalantly pull a 3-inch devil thorn out of their bare foot, or assess the challenge of crossing a bridge consumed by a raging river, that 'Africa is not for sissies'. Accompanied by a proudly puffed out chest and a knowing chuckle. Africa is for 'die manne' (Afrikaans:real men) and in all truth life here is, and always has been, pretty tough in any language. Which probably goes a long way towards explaining it's appeal for some.

A continent of incredible beauty and warmth of both landscape and people, Africa doesn't bend or adapt to the will of humans. It is what it is, take it or leave it but boy, at it's best there are few, if any, comparable places on earth. 

Him Outdoors and I are taking an extended R and R in Diani, a Kenyan coastal gem south of Mombasa. Hardened African travellers as we are, the blistering heat and relentless humidity have worn us out and we have the activity levels of moribund sloths. We share our lovely accommodation with an assortment of European swallows, all but two of whom are regular returnees spending two months every year basking in the moist blast of Diani's summer. Escaping the post-Christmas chill of Germany, Denmark, Norway, Malta and Bulgaria they believe this is paradise and from the comfort of our pool loungers under thatched umbrellas we limply raise our hands in agreement.

As they say, another bloody perfect day in Africa

Mother Africa, however, has a wicked way of reminding us not to get too comfortable in Eden - there are snakes in utopia. Not that we've seen any and other than an impressive collection of insect bites HO and I are coping but our international friends and neighbours are less fortunate.

In the four weeks we've been living here, one young German guest suffered an epileptic fit whilst kite surfing and her poor parents had the anguish of their first trip to Africa to collect her 24 year old body. This is every parent's most unimaginable nightmare and our condolences felt hollow as we mentally hugged and counted our blessings of our own safe and healthy offspring.

Two weeks later, another German contracted Malaria which is a complete mystery as none of us have seen a single mosquito in the compound but there you go. Hans is a Diani regular and travels with his testing kit and malaria meds so it was picked up early and treatment begun but as soon as he was well enough to travel, he changed his flight and skedaddled out of Dodge.

Last week it was the turn of the Norwegians, one of them was laid low by what appears to be a stroke and is comfortably in the care of Diani hospital before they, too, cut their 8 week holiday short and flee north.

The new arrival, a Brit expat now living in Malta, is in a constant state of siege by cockroaches and ants drawn in their droves to torment her. Our suite of rooms is ant and roach free but next door the sound of furniture being moved and shrill shrieks is our nightly entertainment. 

One doesn't want to tempt fate but it seems a bit unfair and harsh of Africa to unleash these plagues upon her visitors from the north; not at all the warm ubuntu (Zulu: humanity) welcome travellers to these lands generally receive. 

They Know Our Every Thought

Whoever ‘they’ are. The use of our personal technology by unnamed spies to silently soak up our needs and interests has moved out of the domain of conspiracy theorists and into the realm of the average Joleen’s every day. Jokes about Alexa and Siri joining the conversation are old hat but perhaps we should be more concerned about how widely our personal lives have been invaded.

Computer whizz Number 1 Son was scanning my new and rather sexy silver slimline laptop with an anti-virus programme a few weeks ago when an alarming message flashed up. “XYZ CORP IS WATCHING YOU THROUGH YOUR WEBCAM”, it warned. This machine had been out of the box and plugged into the internet for less than an hour, and my eyes bulged saucer-like. No 1 didn’t blink, he simply clicked and tapped and did something or other before casually saying that indeed, our phones ARE listening to us, capturing key words and phrases for marketing purposes. And who is policing this? Who decides what is of interest to a retailer and which conversation marks me as a potential master criminal or revolutionary?

Actually, does it matter? It’s a damn violation of personal rights for whatever reason.

Not long after this rude shock, a friend posted on Facebook how weird it was that the day after a conversation, you know, one of those one on one, face to face chats she’d had with a mate about a particular product, her page streamed advert after advert for it. She joked that her phone must have listened in and well, yes, it probably did.

Around the same time, I mooched into the Kameraz store in the Mall of Rosebank and snaffled a fabulous second-hand lens for my beloved camera. Less than 24 hours later my Facebook page was brandishing adverts for Kameraz. Let me make it clear, I haven’t lived in Johannesburg since 2008; in fact, I’ve lived outside of South Africa for over 2 years now. Even when I lived in SA, the Mall wasn’t a regular haunt. I hadn’t done any internet search for this particular lens; it was an opportunistic purchase from a super-helpful salesman. So how did a random shopping purchase end up linking to my social media? Easy, someone explained, they track your location via your phone. This does not make me feel better!

But the royal icing was slapped on the scary cake yesterday. A week or so ago we bought a packet of pasta from a little grocery store in Diani. Diani is a tiny town on the coast south of Mombasa, Kenya, with exquisite beaches and not much else, especially in the way of shopping emporia. Taped to the bag of pasta was a small bottle of coconut oil, some sort of informal shop promo. Now, all I know about coconut oil is that Him Outdoors buys jars of the stuff for his breakfast fry-up from the cooking oils shelf and I pick up the odd bottle from the haircare section but this bottle gave no indication what the oil was to be used for – hair or eggs. The thought of adding coconut oil to cooking pasta curdled my stomach, this surely couldn’t be the intention?

The devil finds work for idle hands so I turned to Google for help, and began typing in the brand name.

Parachute…

And Google answered before I typed another letter -

 

Parachute coconut oil

Now, I don’t know about you but if I was going to rudely finish someone’s sentence, and it started ‘parachute’ I wouldn’t finish it with ‘coconut oil’. Club, training, jumps, accidents, material, supplies..a host of other words and phrases spring to mind. How the devil did Google link a crudely cellotaped bottle of coconut oil, which was not rung up at the till, or discussed within earshot of a computer or phone, to an internet search?

We can’t explain or understand it either, our best guess is that Google used our location to presume that the parachute I was looking for was a never-seen-before brand of coconut oil.

There is no denying it was useful to find out so quickly that I was holding a bottle of hair oil but this ‘smart’ technology has now overstepped my boundaries.

How to reclaim our privacy?