Friday, August 19, 2011

'Adventure' In SA

I am back from South Africa people and I must say I saw nothing; mostly because I was cooped up in a hotel inside Kempton Park, did not know anyone or maybe I was just plain o' scared. So for a hundred rand (R100), I got a wireless voucher from the hotel designed to work scarcely at best and run out after 5 days; let's just say, I learnt my lesson.

baketasticblog.com
itnewsafrica.com
 My adventure in SA started at Joburg airport as my colleague and I realised we could not make calls to Ghana from our Most Terrible Network (MTN) sim card, the exact problem we wanted to avoid when we called MTN Ghana to ask about what we needed to do in order to make calls from SA. A customer service person asked as to load up as much credits on our MTN call accounts as we can and although automatically roaming had been turned on for all MTN lines (I did not know this), just to be on the safe side we send the text ROAM ON to some short code (I have forgotten which code) before we leave the shores of Ghana. So after loading up hundreds of MTN Ghana call credits, we got to SA only to realise we cannot make calls, however we could receive calls and, get this, get deducted for those calls we received! (We knew the way it worked but this was supposed to be a two-way bargain; I make calls, I pay; I receive calls, I pay. It worked one way; their way!)  The Cheats! So off we marched to the MTN SA booth at the airport. Explaining our problem, the lady at the booth, we were informed that we would have to purchase a R60 MTN card from them to get a new sim card which will enable us make calls; hmmmm, another MTN sim card, even if the R60 was for the call credits and not the sim? Nah, I think we will pass and a pass we gave it.
Got ourselves a Vodacom (Vodafone in Ghana) sim card instead and lived to regret that purchase.
techmtaa.com
This is enough for now. I will continue with more; about how I made new friends; a beaut and a heart of gold... :) What I ate as a practicing vegan...