SWAZI WORST VISIT

Sir,
 
As a travel journalist who had visited Swaziland to report about the Marula Festival, I missed this occasion because after six of the most miserable hours imaginable, my colleagues and myself simultaneously agreed that we couldn’t possibly get any work of value done and decided to leave the country.

Swaziland throws itself out into the world as a country working towards a First World status in just about five years’ time. While political commentary is not my domain as I am a travel and tourism journalist who now has no desire whatsoever, to ever return to Swaziland but one thing I can advise the country to put into shape particularly when they have cultural events that they want to showcase to the world, is that in his age, backward internet will lose you media coverage faster than anything else imaginable.

The worst experience imaginable happened in Mbabane at an internet cafe located opposite the post office called Swazi Plaza, at the mall that has a KFC round the corner. We were required by our editor(s) to submit reports about Swaziland which should have taken 3 seconds to upload, but in this post office, 5 hours and a lot of money spent later, it was still failing to upload.

This is just one small example as one of my colleagues - one who had arrived in Mbabane, Swaziland on Friday morning and had spent a whole day in this very internet cafe, failing to upload his assignment - were also on other computers attempting to send reports to their editors.

Neither of us achieved anything. However, what was most shocking about this was that we were told that this ridiculous service which makes visions of 2022 First World status laughable; was not due to weather disturbances or other such forgivable nature foibles; but because since the time when another colleague who had travelled here previously and recommended the cafe to us was here, a post office employee had walked off with a convertor and this post office now operates with backward machinery.

That was the last straw for us! This has been the most hellish assignment in terms of worst country for both my colleagues and I. Our memories of Swaziland are forever skewed with visions of the most dreadful internet service in Africa and the most incompetent Swazi internet employees, save for the security guard who in all honesty should actually be the manager.

It was definitely the worst six hours I have ever spent in any country, and we could not even stand to wait for the marula ceremony or visit the other tourist sites as what was the point as one wouldn’t even be able to upload the assignments since post office employees just walk off with equipment and nobody cares! You couldn’t possibly have a worse time than we did.

Ernie Joubert

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