Back to the Future

After about 6 months of being disconnected from the rest of humankind, I now have internet access at home again. Yes, I am sitting on the couch, computer on lap, tea on couch... (don't move too suddenly, or tea will be on lap).

The past months I have spent in the Internet Cafe/phone booth/discount shop across the street, where neighbourhood kids come to play computer games or IM each other with harrassing comments, men come to play online poker for 4 hours, people search for jobs (I was one of these), and even just to check some email and read some news (also me).

The phone booths had doors but no handles, probably because the actual booth was too small to stand inside and use the phone at the same time. You'd be surprised at how much space your elbows take up. This somewhat defeated the purpose of having a booth, because everyone could hear what you said. I was one of few English speakers using the phone booth, which made it difficult to talk about anything but pressing affairs such as a request for money. This also meant that I could not talk about anyone in the place, as they would most certainly hear me.

Similarly, the computer tables were a little too small to comfortably fit the keyboard, which had obviously never been cleaned.

While the place did make me feel pretty claustrophobic, I think what simultaneously irritated-the-piss-out-of and fascinated me was the freezer full of halal meals and frozen fish. It remains a mystery to me how a shop could claim, at face value, to offer web services and phone cards and then fill up half of the space with food and dry goods (with the occasional flat of 36 eggs).

Still, the place was always packed. When it wasn't crammed with people on dating websites or online gambling, kids gossiping while one IM'd another gaggle of kids, the shop seemed to be a center for a local Muslim population, mostly African. I guess it offered them a space to socialize and buy cheap and familiar foods.

But damn, the place could have been a little less packed with broken monitors, enormous freezers, flats of Coke, and still could retain a social value.