Mainlining CrackBerry
2011-10-13 11:16
Georgina Guedes
My husband arrived last night at the farm where I’ve been staying for a couple of weeks, where everyone is a BlackBerry user, brandishing his iPhone like someone in possession of a gram of Colombia’s finest at a rehab facility.
While he searched for somewhere to charge it after his long drive, we all seethed with resentment after three days of interrupted BlackBerry services.
It hasn’t been as tough for me as it would in Johannesburg and if I was actually working full time - I’m on a half-hearted sort of maternity leave at the moment - but it’s been yet another thread unravelled in the pretty tenuous link I’ve had with connectivity on the farm since I’ve been here.
The internet here is on some sort of radio coverage that gets patchy when it’s overcast. I had an article deadline last week as the thundershowers rolled in, and I wrote against the encroaching storm, terrified of losing connectivity before delivery.
The internet remained intact, but as I was about to press send, lightning hit and the power failed. This required 10 farm workers to dig a trench to repair an underground cable the next day - but I was able to power up an emergency generator to quickly dispatch my e-mail.
Every interaction with technology here is fraught with some kind of anxiety, or at the very least a spirit of adventure out here in the middle of nowhere. This very column is being written in a gap while someone is waiting to use the PC to work out game figures for 2011, while someone else is out on a drive to tinker with something to do with wetland irrigation, and the clouds are rolling in again.
This farm used to be somewhere I’d come to get away from it all. We’d make our last phone call as we left the tar road and then switch off our phones for the duration of our stay. A shabby old computer on dial-up was the first intrusion of technology, and as it was upgraded and connectivity has improved, so has a little more of the outside world intruded on my holiday.
The latest arrival, a wireless router, now means that although there’s no cellphone coverage, I could still get BlackBerry data services on my phone. My phone, which used to be lost at the bottom of my handbag while I visited, is now readily to hand at the end of the house where the router reaches, and my Joburg mates can still get me at the flick of a thumb.
That is, until three days ago, when BlackBerry gave up providing data services to, well, anywhere in the world. The funny thing is that once you’ve progressed, you can’t go back. I’ve never had cellphone use on the farm before, but after a week of it, I couldn’t do without it.
I put my BlackBerry on the table closest to my bedroom that was still in reach of wireless coverage, and checked hopefully throughout the day. It’s a sad but true reflection of the state of modern existence in general and me in particular that the outage affected me so badly while I was on holiday.
But, like I made out in the simile I used in the opening paragraph, connectivity is addictive, and they don’t call them CrackBerrys for nothing.
- Georgina Guedes is a freelance writer. You can follow @georginaguedes on Twitter, if RIM can keep BIS up and running and no more clouds roll in.
Send your comments to Georgina
Disclaimer: News24 encourages freedom of speech and the
expression of diverse views. The views of columnists published on
News24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the
views of News24.
- News24