Virus

Computer virus. This is my number one virus concern in Africa, after the HIV (of course). The main difference being a computer virus is 100% manmade---- there is no spontaneous encapsulation of nucleic acid, there is no ecology to it, no retroviral induced mutations, just some jerk sitting somewhere undoubtedly dark and windowless typing 1’s and 0’s down, and he is probably thinking that he is helping take down the Man, bringing down the Industrial Machine, or something…. Well let me tell you right now, he is not taking down the Man, he is just bringing down Africa… because this is the hotbed of computer viruses… all viruses come to Mozambique and stay in Mozambique. And flash drives (aka “memory sticks” for the technically challenged such as myself---yep, recently realized I may be the only one using that terminology) are the main vectors, they are the festering infectors, teaming with viruses.

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In the mornings, on my ride to work, we listen to the radio, on good days it is BBC news coverage and I can feel somewhat classy, but on the other days we listen to local coverage. Sometimes it is a DJ taking in calls, most of the calls are dropped, in which case the DJ makes a quick transition with a laser sound effect (“hello…. hello…?” **pew-pew-pew**). Sometimes it is this music from Zim (I think it sounds like amped circus music, friends are trying to convince me otherwise and I’m open to conversion because it is played all through the night), this is also interrupted with the laser sound effect **pew-pew-pew** repeatedly and erratically, keeping **pew-pew-pew** a sort of anti-beat through **pew-pew-pew** seemingly random parts of **pew-pew-pew** the tune (I’m probably not Hip enough to get the musical sophistication of this “re-mix”, if this were Portland I’d put on my black rim glasses and grow a mustache at least to make it look like I get it). Sometimes it is national news, which I like because the Portuguese in Maputo sounds exotic. And sometimes it is local news, which I usually don’t like because it frequently is about some shock-and-awe story that is uncomfortably close to home: some guys cutting the hearts and lungs out of his relatives, or some guy who did a self-castration (this one apparently made national news because a friend in the south asked me about this, and for the record these are not exemplary stories of Mozambican culture but rather Mozambican news coverage). The laser sound effect makes an appearance for the local news too **pew-pew-pew**. There are actually three or so versions of the laser sound effect, apparently nothing else, and those buttons are well used.

By far my favorite radio moment is a public service announcement targeting teens and pre-teens to stop downloading music. I think the ad is targeted for Moz but they just say Africa in general. This is different from the ads back home, no scary aggressive voice calling you a thief, no screenshots of musicians talking about their feelings about illegal downloads. Instead it is a scripted dialogue with a schoolboy who is told that Africa/Mozambique is not as developed as everywhere else and does not have the same internet capacity, that when he downloads music he blocks up the system for everyone else----something along the lines of: by downloading music you, personally, are slowing down the Development of Africa, and most of the stuff downloaded is full of viruses anyways and viruses are messing up everything for everybody. The announcement also includes a list of appropriate uses of the internet in Mozambique: mostly just email (sans attachments).

Here is my plea: Dearest Computer Virus Writers: You make it so my students can’t put digital copies of their homework on my computer (that flash ain’t going nowhere near my machine), you make the computers too slow for students to learn how to do research or type out a paper, you make it so little Joao or little Fatima can’t download the latest Akon or Shakira hit. Please find a new hobby. My personal suggestion: eradicating the laser sound effect. Sincerely, Alexandra.