Saturday, December 20, 2008

Coping with a 3rd World Day

I got up yesterday morning and got my cup of coffee from the kitchen and went to 'my office' and turned on the computer. The house was still quiet - the only other person that was awake was hubby and he was busy doing his anal-retentive laundry routine (that's an entire post by itself). I settled myself into my chair, listening to the hum and click of the computer booting up.

One of the things that I missed when coming to Libya was the daily newspaper. Sitting with a cup of coffee and reading the paper every morning before starting the day was a routine that I've only been able to somewhat duplicate since Internet arrived to Libya and became affordable for people to have at home. I'm content to start my day reading the news digitally. I'm happy to settle for what the Internet brings me, but I do miss Wednesday's coupons, and the Sunday edition that's stuffed full with the colourful comics section and all the rest of the extra goodies.


So what happened yesterday? NOTHING.... NO INTERNET! 

I checked the settings and everything seemed fine. I rebooted the computer and still nothing. I decided to try my laptop... same thing... the computer in the kid's room... nothing worked. The only website that would open was LTT's. So I clicked on their contact page and filled in the form, sending them a complaint (not that I expected that they'd care). 

I reached for my mobile phone thinking I could use the Internet that Al-madar offers. That wasn't working either.

There's a holiday, I can never remember which one, on which every year the Internet and international telephone calls are all stopped for the day. Was this it, I wondered. 'Hey Honey!' I called out to my husband. 'Is today some Libyan holiday that we aren't allowed to be connected to the world or something?' I asked.  'What's the date?' he wanted to know. I told him what day it was but he couldn't think of any national holidays for that day.  

Sigh.... life in the third world sucks sometimes... yesterday was one of those sometimes. 

 

6 comments:

  1. My connection was off and on all day yesterday and my Vonage line was not connecting; today is better but not 100%.

    It's the cables in the Red Sea again - I think.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7792688.stm

    From what I understand, Egypt is down and internet traffic is being rerouted this way. I don't know - I'm not into the technical aspects - just give me my internet!

    :o)

    ReplyDelete
  2. My bad, the breaks in cables are in the Mediterranean off Italy -

    "The disruptions reduced Egypt's Internet capacity by about 80 percent but technicians were restoring some capacity by diverting communications traffic through the Red Sea, said a Communications Ministry official, who asked not to be named."

    Doesn't mean a thing to me, as I said. I don't care HOW it works just make it work!

    LOL.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Now i know why we were "off" yesterday. I thought something was wrong with my computer.

    It's good that we're back now.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sympathise with you all, where I used to live I had many problems too here in Brazil.

    AV
    http://netherregionoftheearthii.blogspot.com/
    http://tomusarcanum.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
  5. Salam,

    Yeah could not get through to Libya yesterday,and today is ONLY slightly better....My mobile keeps saying ''NETWORK BUSY''.

    I remember it happened before....
    WHAT CAN WE DO!
    Technology is our crutch! I just had a huge rant about it, then read yours LOL.

    Ma Saloma
    Khedegah.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I believe the phones weren't working correctly either. Good luck. That is one thing I don't miss bout Libya but it taught me patience.

    ReplyDelete

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