“Changing With The Times”

Well, let me not sound so backward, but the truth is bitter but necessary. We have come from not far but very far! Twenty years ago, no one would have imagined that, our lives would have been as they are today. We have had lots of interferences such that, we are no longer the same people as our fore fathers were. The advent of the Mobile phone, the Computer, the Internet, SMS, a TV Set, Face-book, but only to mention a few! These all, with their new lingua-franca make the already bad situation to become worse; how on earth does one expect us to sit and fold our hands as the world slips past us? Not at all! If Chinua Achebe was asked, I definitely think, he would say that, “the things are falling apart”! I recall during our childhood, we never owned a TV set, leave alone knowing of its existence, but now, these areitems found in any household. The computers, internet and emails have not saved the situation. The other day, I found a guy busy cursing some youngsters who did not want to understand the reality, he called them the “Dot Com” kids! When I tell my children of the distances we used to walk or of the rains that used to soak us as we grazed cattle in the hills; they simply look at me as if I am an alien that has just arrivedfrom Mars or a distant planet. Let us shut our eyes and imagine how it was, twenty or so odd years ago, no Mobile phones and yet, we used to look around for some public ones to call the more fortunate ones that had a set in their places or work or abode. If there was no phone, there was no love lost! These days, every one owns or wants to own a mobile phone, even domestic helps and kids all want a set of their own. I have been hearing of this phenomenon called “Face Book”, almost all the children and adults in my neighbourhood are on it. The other day, my daughter came home and demanded to know what my “Face Book” address was! “Just a second, what are you talking about?” I quizzed her. You will not imagine, she, picked my MTN BlackBerry Phone and within an instant, she was on the Internet. In no time, so many pictures of so many people (only God knows) began popping up. I’m told that, almost all the youth in Kigali are on FaceBook, these notwithstanding adults. She had even created a facebook account for me, oh dear me, this was more than what I had bargained for. On an equally baffling subject, there is this funny SMS language that kids of today use, you can hardly understand a thing, they normally take my phone, SMS their friends until the phone either complains of low battery or low airtime balance or both! They do not even bother to hide their tracks by erasing the messages sent, why bother? Only they themselves can understand the language they are using! They are really “butchering” both the Queen’s and Nicholas Sarkozi’s languages without fear or favour. Mfashumwana@fastmail.fm