Saturday, May 19, 2007
Despite the fact that computers are so hard to come by, Internet cafes abound in Jinja, and from what I saw, they did pretty good business. Most of the cafes had a full 128k DSL connection (if they were lucky) although most had a fraction on that shared by all customers. This explains the joy the office felt at having a 128K line all to themselves. Joseph, my Ugandan friend and AOET computer administrator paid a great compliment when he told us he loved going to the office to get on the Internet. “It’s so fast,” he said. “Pages pop right up!”
Even so, speedtest.net maxed us out at 90K or so most days.
Most of the cafe’s were very small affairs like this one,hardly a quarter the size of a standard executive’s office.
Others, like the one at the Source (a major tourist joint for Nile travelers that we found to be very comfortable) was quite expansive.
Seeing so many thriving computer-based businesses was a real encouragement to us. It validated what we had heard: that AOET’s computer training programs create viable business opportunities and income for graduates.
