Twitter
Twitter is a social network in which young people and adults interact with each other. It is relatively new and it is just like Face book. You can register on it and try and find friends and love ones that have been missing for some time. The signing process is relatively easy. All you have to do is provide your email address, full names, and a username that would enable you to lock on into the website and of cause a password. You can write a blog on the site and you can interact with other individuals.
The most popular of the features to me right now has to be to see just how popular some people are in the US or the world at large. To find out how popular somebody is, once you register you can go to the section- find person, type the person’s name and voila you get their popularity rating .I was just playing on the site today and it was surprising to me looking at some of the numbers.
Michael Jordan who is now retired from professional basketball as a player had about 25000 followers. He follows four people on twitter. The list of people that he follows includes Oprah.
Kobe Bryant, I was surprise had just close to 2513 followers, he tracks 16 of his friends on the website.
Lebron James has 6483 followers; he keeps track of 100 people, busy for a popular guy.
Golfer Tiger Woods had about 13000 followers, his number of followers to close to that of Michael Jordan.
I kept looking and then I hit on the people that are really popular in the US.
Shaq, who did his college education at LSU and still plays professional basketball, has just under 1.9million followers. He keeps track of 555 of his friends on the website. This is a huge following for the soon to be retired basketball player. He has openly express his desire to be a sheriff once he retires from the game of basketball. Maybe he should be looking at a higher position like running for Governor in the state of Louisiana and why not maybe run for the top job of the nation, president of the United States.
President Barrack Obama’s followers where close to that of Shaq at just under 1.9 million followers. The President though had everybody beat by a huge margin in terms of people that he keeps track of on the site. His number stands at 800,000. Nobody came anywhere close to that number in terms people that you keep track of on the website. For somebody who is the Chief executive officer of the nation, where does he get the time to keep in touch with all these people, just amazing?
Oprah tops the list with the most followers with just under 2million people keeping track of her on the website. She keeps track of four people on the site and the people that she follows include, you guess it Shaq.
Former President George Walker Bush has 23 followers. Bill Clinton has 1803 followers and he keeps track of nine individuals on the website.
Out of the US, I put in Nelson Mandela’s name and he had 1108 individuals that are his followers. He keeps track of six people.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
अ ट्रिप तो लागोस,Nigeria
This journey begins in a small town called Tiko, located in the South West Province of the Republic of Cameroon. The purpose of the visit was to travel to Lagos, Nigeria to see a man called T. B Joshua who is really popular in this part of the world. The guy is noted for performing miracles like Jesus Christ did in his days and the idea was to go check it out. We traveled the three of us from where I live but there were a lot of people also traveling that I would get to meet during the course of the journey.
The means of transportation is a ship called "Asuka".It carries about 500 passengers at a time and it has a lower and an upper section. The lower section is the first class. We were in the second class and the cost of this part of the journey was about 50,000 francs CFA.In dollars that is about 100 dollars for a round trip ticket. This part of the journey would take us from Tiko to Calabar, Nigeria. The ship was loaded with both passengers and cargo, with some people lying on the floor through the whole journey. The journey started at around 11pm and we were told that by around 8am in the next day we should be at the port in Calabar. What you do once you get into the ship is to look for a place to seat and place your hand luggage. There is enough space in the ship for the rest of the merchandise that people are transporting to Nigeria. Most of it is foodstuff; a lot is merchandise that is going to be sold over there. There is a separate attachment to the ship that is quite huge and the crew of the ship loads and off load the cargo that goes into this area.
To make the journey convenience, there is a sales counter where you can get soft drinks, sandwiches and other foodstuffs. The counter stays open until about between 1 to 2 am in the morning. It reopens early at about 7am in the morning when breakfast is served. On the upper level in which we were located there were two 35 inches television monitors that showed movies through the journey. The movies alternated between western movies and movies from "Nollywood" that is the name of the Nigerian film industry. There are decks also that you can go out of the sitting area to relax outside. You could stand out there and get to see the ocean. That is my favorite part of the ship. I always love to look out at the sea. The time of year that we traveled, the sea was quite calm, at least during the first part of the journey. Also it looks like at night the sea is calm. The ship itself does not move very fast but there is enough distraction around to keep you busy so that the journey does not get boring at all.
The Immigration Officers
You have to go through some immigration formalities while you are inside the ship. The crew members collected 3000 francs, about 6 dollars from those of us of Cameroonian nationality. We would also get to pay about the same amount to get out of the ports once you reach Calabar, Nigeria. You would be required to show proof of vaccination at the Calabar port also before you can continue your journey. The vaccination was for yellow fever. On your way back to the Republic of Cameroon, you would repeat this immigration procedure. The Nigerian immigration would require you to pay 4000 francs CFA, about 8dollars before you can board the ship out of this country and once you get into the ship, there would be another 4000 francs charge, this time the fee is for Cameroonian immigration authorities and this is collected sometime before you arrive at the destination in Tiko.
Arriving Calabar.
We arrived at Calabar about 8am in the morning after being at sea for about 9 hours. That is the time it takes to complete the journey by ship. You get to pass quite a few people that are making the journey with speedboats and at times local canoes that are powered by engines. They are wide open at the sea making the journey with no type of protection at all. A lot of people have lost their lives traveling with these boats but the journeys are still going on. The method that we used is by no means the safest . There are no border patrols through the course of the journey and I get the feeling that if something happens in the open sea we were all on our own.
From Calabar to Lagos.
Once you got to Calabar, the next part of the journey is to travel by bus to your Lagos destination. There is a make shift motor park that is located right at the Calabar port and there you can board buses that take about 15 to 20 passengers for the trip to Lagos. Though we arrived at Calabar at around 8am in the morning, we did not get to leave from there until about 11am in the morning. There are a numbers of things that needed to be done, like getting the rest of our luggage off loaded off the ship. Also we had to convert our currency from CFA to Naira. Naira is the Nigerian currency and there is quite a market flourishing in the currency conversion business at the Calabar port. At the time that we traveled the rate of CFA to Naira was about 3CFA francs for I Naira. The advice that you get is to convert only the amount of money that you feel that you are going to need while in Nigeria. So that is what we did. We converted enough money that would cover us for transportation, hotel stay and feeding while we were in Nigeria.
The cost of the journey from Calabar to Lagos at the time we traveled was 5000 Naira.15, 000cfa or about 30 dollars. The journey itself by bus runs for about 11 to 12 hours depending on the skill of your driver. We did not make it to Lagos on the same day because it got dark at about the time that we arrived at Onitsha. The advice of the driver was that we spend the night there and continue the journey in the morning. He said it is not safe to travel at night in the country because of armed robbers. So we spend the night at a small hotel and continue the journey at about 7am in the morning. By about noon we had made it to the outskirt of Lagos.
The journey form Calabar to Lagos is not a smooth one at all. The roads in Nigeria are good in some areas but there are also some bad areas that make the journey much longer. That is the case in the country that we were coming from. So if you have heard stories that the Republic of Nigeria is full of paved superhighways everywhere, forget it, that is a myth. Armed security men are all over the highways. They would stop the vehicles occasionally, but most of the time they just wave you along. They are there to safeguard your free passage from one part of the country to another. The country is quite large though and there are stretches of land that is uninhabited. The Delta Niger area is on the news a lot because of the struggle that is ongoing between the rebels and the government for oil revenue sharing and we passed through this area. I kind of like the area a lot. The Nigerian government has started to do something about the problems of the people in this part of the country and you could see that in the highways that were being constructed in the region. An international airport was being built also and you could see part of it from the major highway.
Once we arrived at Lagos, the next step was to find out where the Synagogue, Church of All Nations is located because that is where we were heading. From all the talk about the Man of God that we got before leaving Cameroon, I thought that the first person that we talk to would know where the place is. The driver that took us had said that he knows where the place is but that was not the case. We had to spend about close to two hours driving through traffic in Lagos before we could finally get the right directions to reach the area. So arriving the outskirts of Lagos at around 12noon, we did not get to reach the church area until around close to 3pm.
We are in Lagos
We arrived at the church area and looking at the church building from outside, it is quite an impressive building. A lot of money and time was spent putting up the building, I would say. The place was also jammed pack with people from both within Nigeria and other neighboring countries. Word has sure got around that the Man of God is performing miracles here in Nigeria and people are flooding the area. As you move around you would see people that had just arrived and have no place to stay and they are sleeping on the streets underneath large Lorries. Some areas looked like make shift refugee camps. Hotel Accommodation could be gotten for about 8500 francs cfa a night that is about 16 dollars a night. A lot of people do not border to stay in a hotel which at 16 dollars a night is stiff to a lot of people here. So what they do is look for somebody that lives in the area and pay them 500 Naira, about 3 dollars a night and they are provided with a mat on which they could spend the night on.
So we arrived at Lagos on a Tuesday and on Wednesday we visited the area where the man of God is. The aim of the visit was to inquire as to how you get to see him in the first place. We were told that appointments have to be made on Thursdays and Fridays and then you get to meet the man at church service on a Saturday and Sunday. Saturdays and Sundays are the days in which the actual healing takes place. The area that we had to go for the appointment is a building that is opened at the sides. It is like an unfinished building, one that is under construction. There are enough seats for just about everybody that cares to take a seat. Just adjacent to this building is the built in restaurant of the church. They serve food at discounted prices. What you have to do is go to one of the counters and you purchase a meal ticket for about 50 to about 200 Naira, let's just say that for a little more than a dollar you can get the higher end ticket and then you proceed to the area that the various foodstuffs are being served. The Wednesday that we went to the open area for inquiry the Pastor happened to pass by with a little entourage. He want to the restaurant area briefly and then just left.
On Thursday at about noon we headed to the appointment hall to get a talk with one of the representatives of the Synagogue, Church of all Nations. There are many of them, of various nationalities also. They came from South Africa, some from England and also from the local area. The ones from overseas were said to be volunteers. What is done in the appointment area is to divide all of the visitors into various areas according to the purpose of your visit to the church. Announcement is made for people with mental disease to go to a certain area, people with HIV/AIDS to go to their own area, people with physical disabilities to go to their own area and then the rest of the group is placed in their own area. The reps are then assigned to the various groups. What they do is they talk to everybody that is in the hall to narrow down their problem. Those that can not be attended to on Thursday are attended to on Friday. They would ask you for an appointment during this period. It gets tricky here because when we visited we did not have an appointment. What saved us is that we had a recent medical report from a doctor. What the reps would explain to you is that you should not come if you do not have an appointment, which is understandable once you actually visit and see the amount of people that arrive daily to visit the church. At the very least you should get a medical report if your case warrants one. If you are just looking for a break-through in life as some of the cases might be, then it is a good idea to get an appointment. Quite a few people visit the church from far away countries and they do not get attended to at all. Some of them take a chance and extend their stay for another week in the area and hope that they would get attended to in the following week. There is an elderly man who came with his son and spend the whole week and returned without any attention. The man explained to me that he had to sell his farm that he had cultivated for a period of about twenty five years to raise the funds to make the trip from the Kumba area in the Republic of Cameroon to Lagos, Nigeria. He could not walk and he left the area without attending the healing service. He came without an appointment and had to be calling back home to raise some funds for transportation back home. So you might get lucky and get attended to without an appointment but to be on the safe side, it is a good idea to get an appointment before making the trip especially if you are coming from a foreign country.
So you get attended to by one of the representatives and what they do is talk to you, get some feed back and assign you to show up for church service on Saturday for the healing service. You have to go get a personal sign-board on which your problems are written on. If you have watched the program on television you would know what I am talking about. The signs are written up on the same day that you get assigned for church service. There is a different area that takes care of these and it is in this area that we met the Pastors wife who was helping with the writing up of the sign-boards. From this area you get to go inside the church and there is a video camera session inside the church itself during which everybody is video-taped with you displaying your sign. This is the last part of the appointment session and we left the area after this to be back on Saturday for the healing church service. The appointment time is written on a little piece of paper and indicates for you to show up at around 8am in the morning for the healing service. The note is your proof that you have gone through the screening process and you are ready for the healing service on Saturday.
What you do on your downtime.
When you visit the Synagogue, Church of all nations, the whole visit is supposed to take about a week. In our case we arrived at Lagos, on a Tuesday and left the following Monday for Calabar, Nigeria. We did not leave Nigeria until Wednesday morning when the ship bound for Tiko; the Republic of Cameroon left the Calabar port. So there is going to be a lot of downtime while you are in Nigeria. What I do during my visit to large cities is to walk a lot to see places that are in the vicinity of where I live. A did a lot of this while at Lagos to get a feel of what it is like to live in a city like this. I would get up in the morning and start my journey on foot around 9am in the morning. I would visit places like shops and market areas, computer centers and get home sometime before it gets dark. You really get a feel of what city life is like this way. Lagos, Nigeria is a busy city. By the time you get up, the streets are already crowded with people heading to various destinations. There are a lot of bikes in the city and three legs mini-vehicles. The mini-vehicles look like something right out of an Indian movie. There are also mid-size buses that is the primary means of transportation, second to the bikes. I found the mini-buses quite old and there were all painted yellow. As you walk on the streets of Lagos, there are hawkers everywhere. Mostly children and women hawking all types of items from cool drinking water to home-made bread and various soft drinks. We visited when the weather was quite hot and I spend a lot of money buying the drinking water to keep myself cool. I visited a few cyber-cafes and there was usually parked with young men and women, mostly university students. The cost was okay though the connection speed was quite slow. The service people would speak to you in English but amongst themselves they speak in their native language. This is true in all the places that we visited starting from Calabar.Each area that you go to the individuals speak in their native language amongst themselves. I found this rather interested. I believe the Federal Republic of Nigeria is made up of three mains tribes, Yoruba, Ibo and the Hausa which makes it possible for the people to be able to communicate easily in their native languages. This is in a country with close to 170 million people. You contrast that with a country like the Republic of Cameroon which is making up of about 16 million people but has close to 200 native languages and you see clearly the advantage that the Nigerians have in this category. I learn while in Nigeria that they do not have a national identity card. I guess it is easy for them to tell wether you are a foreigner or not. You have to know how to speak the local language. So once you open your mouth to speak they know right away that you are from a different country.
The Church or healing service.
On your appointment slip they say that you should come to church on Saturday around 8am in the morning. This is true for both individuals that got their appointments either on Thursday or on Friday. So the healing service is the one that takes place on Saturday. Sunday is a regular church service, though some healing still goes on during that church service. We arrived at Church service at around 8am in the morning and the place is already packed with people. You are assigned seats into the Church with some people sitting downstairs, those that would be attended to first and rest of the people moving upstairs from where you can still get a clear view of what is going on. The healing area is located on the floor and it is clear of chairs. What you would find there are video cameras that are taking pictures during a large part of the service. The floor area would be surrounded with people and what the Pastor would do is to move around and touch each and every one of these individuals. That is part of how the healing process is. For some people he would spend more time actually preaching to you and depending on the case, he would yell to try and drive away the devil. Pastor T.B Joshua did not get into the church until about 2pm in the afternoon. So between the time that we arrived at the healing service time was spend between getting everybody seated and allowing some people during lunch time to go get something to eat and come back to church. The rest of the time is spend watching a large screen monitor on which past healing services are shown. There are a lot of sick people that visit the church and some of the video footage is quite gruesome. So you have to have a stomach for some of the stuff that would be displayed on the screen from disable people with individuals with terrible sores. People with HIV-AIDS, leprosy, mental illnesses, nothing was left without display. On the day that we attended the healing session, there were close to about 10.000 people present.
Arrival of T.B Joshua
The man of God arrived about 3pm in the afternoon and the place just got real electrifying. Everybody got on their feet and he began be given a little speech then proceeded with the healing process. What happens is that people are taken from their seats to the floor level and it is from there that they are placed in a circle. The man of God then goes around and touches everybody. In some of the case, you are literally pushed onto the floor. This process goes on until everybody in the church is touched. This is really something because we are taking here about close to 10,000 people that have to be attended to. Once this part of the work is over, the next part is that of giving out the anointed water. This process takes some time because TB Joshua has to leave the church to go bless the water before coming back into the church. He left that Saturday for about an hour and thirty minutes before returning. His workers accompanied him and upon his return there were the famous little plastic bottles with the water in them. There is a lot of ceremony that goes on before he starts throwing the water bottles into the crowd. You are advised to only take one bottle. That would be enough for each individual. There is the ability for you to refill the bottles once you return, so it is something that is supposes to last you a long time. There is a general prayer by the whole church to bless the water and you get to get about three drinks of it in the church before the whole process is done with. After the anointed water is distributed we get into testimonies. This is the part that people actually come up to the healing floor and say how they have been affected by the man of God. There are people that testify that their pains are all gone. Some that come on crutches claim that they can now walk and actually do a demonstration on the floor. It is quite something to watch. You would see some elderly people actually run on the floor and do some kind of dancing. The healing service did not end until sometime close to 10pm. That is quite a lot of church service for one day. I had no idea that I could attend church service for that long a period of time. There was announcement as to when the Sunday service will take place. This service is to cap your visit to the Synagogue, Church of All Nations.
There were going to be an early service and a late one. I believed that I made it to the later part of the early service and just continued throw the late service. There is voluntary thanksgiving during this service. This is one way that the church supports itself. The other way is through the sales of prophesy books, audio cassettes and video compact disc. You can also choose to be a member of the church and get admitted while there at the church. There is a fee for that, which they get to tell you once you are at the church service. There is testimonies that goes on during this service and a lot of experience sharing. Some people are exposed. There is a guy that used to be a gang member and came in for healing. He told us that all of his friends are all dead from gang related activities. There was a gentleman from the Republic of Gabon who had been claiming to be the personal representative of the man of God in Gabon. People had to pass through him to come to Lagos and he was collecting some money. He came to repent and he was forgiven.
The Sunday service ended around 7pm and that was the end of the visit. Everybody went home to start making arrangements for the trip back to their place of origin. Our delegation that traveled to Lagos, Nigeria were close to fifteen individuals. We did not all travel back to Calabar due to that fact that we did not get to stay in the same place. I left for Calabar early Monday morning, thinking that our ship would be returning to Cameroon on Monday night. It turned out that the ship would not depart from Calabar until early on Wednesday. The actual driving from Lagos to Calabar took place during the day. We had a very good and experience driver and he got us to Calabar in about 11 hours. The guy knew all of the back roads and used that knowledge to help us escape a lot of the traffic. We made some brief stops on our way back but overall the drive back was pretty quite. The armed police officers were still around. I guess that is just the reality of traveling in Nigeria by road. You get to pass through a lot of security. Most of the time, they just waved you through. The drivers also ignore them at times and get away with it. Our driver knew exactly when to stop and when to just keep going. I rested a bit on Monday and spend the whole of Tuesday sight seeing in Calabar. It turned out that Calabar is not a bad place at all. The area is quite good for residential purpose.
The Trip Back home.
Because I made a miscalculation on when the ship was to depart from Calabar, I had to spend the night at the port in Calabar and wait for the ship to arrive on Wednesday morning. There are a lot of workers that stay at the port in Calabar and you just look for a place and spend the night. The ship arrived on Wednesday morning and it was quite a relive to see it. After the passengers got out you could go in and place you luggage and look for a place to rest inside the ship. Departure was not due until some time early in the morning on Thursday. There was news that ships do not travel at night to return to Cameroon due to one reason or the other. My guess was one of safety. Before boarding back to Cameroon you had to check in one last time with the Nigeria immigration and pay a fee of 4000 CFA francs, about 8 dollars I would say. You are then provided with a pass that you would show to the authorities while in the ship. There would also be one more payment of about the same amount to the Cameroonian immigration authority while inside the ship and sometime before you reach Cameroon. We left Calabar about close to 6am on Thursday morning and did the whole trip on broad daylight. I had my Camera with me through the course of the journey but I did not have any films with me. I left Cameroon, thinking that I would get films while in Nigeria but it turned that they have completely move into the digital age over there. While in Cameroon you could walk into any electronic store and get films that was not the case in Nigeria. I looked all over Lagos and could not find a single store that sell films for Cameras. That was the case on my way to Lagos from Calabar and during the period that I stayed in Calabar.I look everywhere but could not find any films. It was really disappointing to me. Anyway it turned out that traveling during the day in the seas is a bit turbulent than at night. The sea was not really rough but it was not as smooth as during the day. The waves had arrived and you could actually feel or go outside and see the ship did a side by side wave on the open sea. I do not get scared at all but I guess to somebody that is not used to the open sea it could be quite a trip. I did get to check out areas on the ship and they had life jackets, although this was no mention of what to do in case of an emergency as they do on air fights. The open sea is always fascinating to me and I did like the fact that I got to go outside and take a look at the water. Oil drilling is going on and that is part of the landmark that takes you to and back from Nigeria in the open sea.
Conclusion.
Quite a trip if you asked me, I had been staying at home for quite a while and the call for adventure made me not to hesitate on making the trip. Going out in the open sea is always risky especially when you get to listen to stories of armed men boarding some of the ships to look for money. The stories that I got is that they come in and look for money and once that get the money the head out. They would only course trouble if their demands are not met. There was another story that one of the ships actually sank during one of those trips and a backup ship had to be sent in to move the passengers in open sea. Trying to rescue the cargo was out of the question.
This journey begins in a small town called Tiko, located in the south west Province of the Republic of Cameroon. The purpose of the visit was to travel to Lagos, Nigeria to see a man called T B Joshua who is really popular in this part of the world. The guy is noted for performing miracles like Jesus Christ did in his days and the idea was to go check it out. We travel the three of us from where I live but there were a lot of people also traveling that I would get to meet during the course of the journey.
The means of transportation is a ship called "Asuka".It carries about 500 passengers at a time and it has a lower and an upper section. The lower section is the first class. We were in the second class and the cost of this part of the journey was about 50,000 francs CFA.In dollars that is about 100 dollars. This part of the journey would take us from Tiko to Calabar, Nigeria. The ship was loaded with both passengers and cargo, with some people lying on the floor through the whole journey. The journey started at around 11pm at night and we were told that by around 8am in the morning we should be at the port in Calabar. What you do once you get into the ship is to look for a place to seat and place your hand luggage. There is enough space in the ship for the rest of the merchandise that people are transporting to Nigeria. Most of it is foodstuff; a lot is merchandise that is going to be sold over there. There is a separate attachment to the ship that is quite huge and the crew of the ship loads and off load the cargo that goes into this area.
To make the journey convenience, there is a sales counter where you can get soft drinks, sandwiches and other foodstuffs. The counter stays open until about between 1 to 2 am in the morning. It reopens early at about 7am in the morning when breakfast is served. On the upper level in which we were located there were two 35 inches television monitors that showed movies through the journey. The movies alternated between western movies and movies from "Nollywood" that is the name of the Nigerian film industry. There are decks also that you can go out of the sitting area to go relax outside. You could stand out there and get to see the ocean. That is my favorite part of the ship. I always love to look out at the sea. The time of year that we traveled, the sea was quite calm, at least during the first part of the journey. Also it looks like at night the sea is calm. The ship itself does not move very fast but there is enough distraction around to keep you busy so that the journey does not get boring at all.
The Immigration Officers
You have to go through some immigration formalities while you are inside the ship. The crew members collected about 3000 francs, about 6 dollars from those of us of Cameroonian nationality. We would also get to pay about the same among to get out of the ports once you reach Calabar, Nigeria. You would be required to show proof of vaccinations at the Calabar port also before you can continue your journey. The vaccinations were for yellow fever. On your way back to the Republic of Cameroon, you would repeat this immigration procedure. The Nigerian immigration would require you to pay about 4000 francs CFA, about 8dollars before you can board the ship out of this country and once you get into the ship, there would be another 4000 francs charge, this time the fee is for Cameroonian immigration authorities and this is collected sometime before you arrive at the destination in Tiko.
Arriving Calabar.
We arrived at Calabar about 8am in the morning after being at sea for about 9 hours. That is the time that takes to complete the journey by ship. You get to pass quite a few people that are making the journey with speedboats and at times local canoes that are powered by engines. They are wide open at the sea making the journey with no type of protection at all. A lot of people have lost their lives traveling with these boats but the journeys are still going on. The method that we used is by no means the safest was idea. There are no boarder guides through the course of the journey and I get the feeling that if something happens in the open sea we were all on our own.
From Calabar to Lagos.
Once you got to Calabar, the next part of the journey is to travel by bus to your Lagos destination. There is a made shift motor park that is located right at the Calabar port and there you can board buses that take about 15 to 20 passengers for the trip to Lagos. Though we arrived at Calabar at around 8am in the morning we did not get to leave from there until about 11am in the morning. There are a numbers of things that needed to be done, like getting the rest of our luggage off loaded from the ship. Also we had to convert our currency from CFA to Naira. Naira is the Nigerian currency and there is quite a market flourishing in the currency conversion business at the Calabar port. At the time that we traveled the rate of CFA to Naira was about 3CFA francs for I Naira. The advice that you get is to convert only the amount of money that you feel that you are going to need while in Nigeria. So that is what we did. We converted enough money that would cover us for transportation, hotel stay and feeding while we were in Nigeria.
The cost of the journey from Calabar to Lagos at the time we traveled was 5000 Naira.15, 000cfa or about 30 dollars. The journey itself by bus runs for about 11 to 12 hours depending on the skill of your driver. We did not make it to Lagos on the same day because it got dark at about the time that we arrived at Onitsha. The advice of the driver was that we spend the night there and continue the journey in the morning. He said it is not safe to travel at night in the country because of armed robbers. So we spend the night at a small hotel and continue the journey at about 7am in the morning. By about noon we had made it to the outskirt of Lagos.
The journey form Calabar to Lagos is not a smooth one at all. The roads in Nigeria are good in some areas but there are also some bad areas that make the journey much longer. That is the case in the country that we were coming from. So if you have heard stories that the Republic of Nigeria is full of paved superhighways everywhere, forget it that is a myth. Armed security men are all over the highways. They would stop the vehicles occasionally, but most of the time they just wave you along. They are there to safeguard your free passage from one part of the country to another. The country is quite large though and there stretches of land that is uninhabited. The Delta Niger area is on the news a lot because of the struggle that is ongoing between the rebels and the government for oil revenue sharing and when passed through this area. I kind of like the area a lot. The Nigerian government has started to do something about the problems of the people in this part of the country and you could see that in the highways that were being constructed in this part of the country. An international airport was being built also and you could see part of it from the major highway.
Once we arrived at Lagos, the next step was to find out where the Synagogue Church of All Nations is located because that is where we were heading. From all the talk about the Man of God that we got before leaving Cameroon, I thought that the first person that we talk to would know where the place is. The driver that took us had said that he knows where the place is but that was not the case. We had to spend about close to two hours driving through traffic in Lagos before we could finally get the right directions to reach the area. So arriving the outskirts of Lagos at around 12noon, we did not get to reach the church area until around close to 3pm.
We are in Lagos
We arrived at the church area and looking at the church building from outside it is quite an impressive building. A lot of money and time was spent putting up the building, I would say that. The place was also jammed pack with people from both within Nigeria and other neighboring countries. Word has sure got around that the Man of God is performing miracles here in Nigeria and people are flooding the area. As you move around you would see people that had just arrived the area and have no place to stay and they are sleeping on the streets underneath large Lorries. Some areas almost looked like make shift refugee camps. Hotel Accommodation could be gotten for about 8500 francs cfa a night that is about 16 dollars a night. A lot of people do not border to stay in a hotel which at about 16 dollars a night is stiff to a lot of people here. So what they do is look for somebody that lives in the area and pay them 500 Naira, about 3 dollars a night and they are provided with a mat on which they could spend the night on.
So we arrived at Lagos on a Tuesday and on Wednesday we visiting the area where the man of God is. The aim of the visit was to inquire as to how you get to see him in the first place. We were told that appointments have to be made on Thursdays and Fridays and then you get to meet the man at church service on a Saturday and Sunday. Saturdays and Sundays are the days in which the actual healing takes place. The area that we had to go for the appointment is a building that is opened at the sides. It is like an unfinished building, one that is under construction. There are enough seats for just about everybody that cares to take a seat. Just adjacent to this building is the built in restaurant of the church. They serve food at discounted prices. What you have to do is go to one of the counters and you purchase a meal ticket for about 50 to about 200 Naira, let’s just say that for a little more than a dollar you can get the higher end ticket and then you proceed to the area that the various foodstuffs are being served. The Wednesday that we went to the open area for inquiry the Pastor happened to pass by with a little entourage. He want to the restaurant area briefly and then just left the area.
On Thursday at about noon we headed to the appointment hall to get a talk with one of the representatives of the Synagogue, Church of all Nations. There are many of them, of various nationalities also. They came from South Africa, some from England and also from the local area. The ones from overseas were said to be volunteers. What is done in the appointment area is to divide all of the visitors into various areas according to the purpose of your visit to the church. Announcement is made for people with mental disease to do to a certain area, people with HIV/AIDS to go to their own area, people with physical disabilities to go to their own area and then the rest of the group is placed in their own area. The reps are then assigned to the various groups. What they do is they talk to everybody that in hall to narrow down their problem. Those that can not be attended to on Thursday are attended to on Friday. They would ask you for an appointment during this period. It gets tricky here because when we visited we did not have an appointment. What saved us is that we had a recent medical report from a doctor. What the reps would explain to you is that do not come if you do not have an appointment, which is understandable once you actually visit and see the amount of people that arrive daily to visit the church. At the very least you should get a medical report if you case warrants one. If you are just looking for a break-through in life as some of the cases might be then it is a good idea to get an appointment. Quite a few people visit the church from far away countries and they do not get attended to at all. Some of them take a chance and extend their stay for another week in the area and hope that they would get attended to in the following week. There is an elderly man who came with his son and spends the whole week and returned without any attention. The man explained to me that he had to sell his farm that he had cultivated for a period of about twenty five years to raise the funds to make the trip from the Kumba area in the Republic of Cameroon to Lagos, Nigeria. He could not walk and he left the area without attending the healing service. He came without an appointment and had to be calling back home to raise some funds for transportation back home. So you might get lucky and get attended to without an appointment but to be on the safe side, it is a good idea to get an appointment before making the trip especially if you are coming from a foreign country.
So you get attended to by one of the representatives and what they do is talk to you, get some feed back and assign you to show up for church service on Saturday for the Thursday appointments and Sunday service for the Friday appointments. You have to go get a personal sign-board on which your problems are written on. If you have watched the program on television you would know what I am talking about. The signs are written up on the same day that you get assigned for church service. There is a different area that takes care of these and it is in this area that we met the Pastors wife who was helping with the writing up of the sign-boards. From this area you get to go inside the church and there is a video camera session inside the church itself during which everybody is video-taped with you displaying your sign. This is the last part of the appointment session and we left the area after this to be back on Saturday for the healing or church service. The appointment time indicates for you to show up at around 8am in the morning for the healing service with a little note that they advise you not to loose. This is the proof that you have gone through the screening process and you are ready for the healing service on Saturday or Sunday.
What you do on your downtime.
When you visit the Synagogue, Church of all nations, the whole visit is supposed to take about a week. In our case we arrived at Lagos, on a Tuesday and left on a Monday for Calabar, Nigeria. We did not leave Nigeria until Wednesday morning when the ship bound for Tiko; the Republic of Cameroon left the Calabar port. So there is going to be a lot of downtime while you are in Nigeria. What I do during me visit to large cities is to walk a lot a see places that are in the vicinity of where I live. A did a lot of this while at Lagos to get a feel of what it is like to live in a city like this. I would get up in the morning and start my journey on foot around 9am in the morning. I would visit places like shops and market areas, computer centers and get home sometime before it gets dark. You really get a feel of what city life is like this way. Lagos, Nigeria is a busy city. By the time you get up, the streets are already crowded with people heading to various destinations. There are a lot of bikes in the city and three legs min-vehicles. The mini-vehicles look like something right out of an Indian movie. There also mid-size buses that is the primary means of transportation, second to the bikes. I found the mini-buses quite old and there were all painted yellow. As you walk on the streets of Lagos, there are hawkers everywhere. Mostly children and women hawking all types of items from cool drinking water to home-made bread and various soft drinks. We visited when the weather was quite hot and I spend a lot of money buying the drinking water to keep myself cool. I visited a few cyber cafes and there was usually parked with young men and women, mostly university students. The cost was okay though the connection speed was quite slow. The service people would spend in English but amongst themselves they speak in their native language. This true in all the places that we visited starting from Calabar.Each area that you go to the individuals speak in their native language amongst themselves. I found this rather interested. I believe the Federal Republic of Nigeria is made up of three mains tribes, Yoruba, Ibo and the Hausa which makes it possible for the people to be able to communicate easily in their native languages. This is in a country with close to 200 million people. You contrast that with a country like the Republic of Cameroon which is making up of about 16 million people but close to 200 native languages and you see clearly the advantage that the Nigerians have in this category. I learn while in Nigeria that they do not have a national identity card. I guess it is easy for them to tell weather you are a foreigner or not. You have to know how to speak the local language. So once you open your mouth to speak they know right away that you are from a different country.
The Church or healing service.
On your appointment slip they say that you should come to church on Saturday around 8am in the morning. This is true for both individuals that got their appointments either on Thursday or on Friday. So the healing service is the one that takes place on Saturday, Sunday is a regular church service, though some healing still goes on during that church service. So we arrived at Church service at around 8am in the morning and the place is already packed with people. You are assigned seats into the Church with some people sitting downstairs, those that would be attended to first and rest of the people moving upstairs from where you can still get a clear view of what is going on. The healing area is located on the floor and it is clear of chairs. What you would find there are video cameras that are taking pictures during a large part of the service. The floor area would be surrounded with people and what the Pastor would do is to move around and touch each and every one of these individuals. That is part of how the healing process is. For some people he would spend more time actually preaching to you and depending on the case, he would yell to try and drive away the devil. Pastor T.B Joshua did not get into the church until about 2pm in the afternoon. So between the time that we arrived at the healing service time was spend between getting everybody seated and allowing some people during lunch time to go get something to eat and come back to church. The rest of the time is spending watching a large screen monitor on which past healing services are shown. There are a lot of sick people that visit the church and some of the video footage is quite gruesome. So you have to have a stomach for some of the stuff that would be displayed on the screen from disable people with individuals with terrible sores. People with HIV-AIDS, leprosy, mental illnesses, nothing was left without display. By the way on the day that we attended the healing session, there were close to about 10.000 people that were present.
Arrival of T.B Joshua
The man of God arrived about 3pm in the afternoon and the place just got real electrifying. Everybody got on their feet and he began be given a little speech then proceeded with the healing process. What happens is that people are taken from their seats to the floor level and it is from there that they are placed in a circle. The man of God then goes around and touches everybody. In some the case you are literally pushed onto the floor. This process goes on until everybody in the church is touched. This is really something because we are taking here about close to 10,000 people that have to be attended to. Once this part of the work is over, the next part is that of given out the anointed water. This process takes some time because TB Joshua has to leave the church to go bless the water before coming back into the church. He left that Saturday for about an hour and thirty minutes before returning. His workers accompanied him and upon his return there were the famous little plastic bottles with the water in them. There is a lot of ceremony that goes on before he starts throwing the water bottles into the crowd. You are advised to only take one bottle. That would be enough for each individual. There is the ability for you to refill the bottles once you return, so it is something that is supposes to last you a long time. There is a general prayer by the whole church to bless the water and you get to get about three drinks of it in the church before the whole process are done with. After the anointed water is distributed we get into testimonies. This is the part that people actually come up to the healing floor and say how they have been affected by the man of God. There are people that testify that their pains are all gone. Some that come on crutches claim that they can now walk and actually do a demonstration on the floor. It is quite something to watch. You would say some elderly people actually run on the floor and do some kind of dancing. The healing service did not end until sometime close to 10pm. That is quite a lot of church service for one day. I had no idea that I could attend church service for that long a period of time. There was announcement as to go the Sunday service will take place. This service is to cap your visit to the Synagogue, Church of All Nations. There were going to be an early service and a late one. I believed that I made it to the later part of the early service and just continued throw the late service. There is voluntary thanksgiving during this service. This was one way that the church supports itself. The other way is through the sales of prophesy books, audio cassettes and video compact disc. You can also choose to be a member of the church and get admitted while there at the church. There is a fee for that, which they get to tell you once you are at the church service. There is testimonies that goes on during this service and a lot of experience sharing. Some people are exposed. There is a guy that used to be a gang member and came in for healing. He told us that all of his friends are all dead from gang related activities. There was a gentleman from the Republic of Gabon who had been claiming to be the personal representative of the man of God in Gabon. People had to pass through him to come to Lagos and he was collected some money. He came to repent and he was forgiven.
The Sunday service ended around 7pm and that was the end of the visit. Everybody went home to start making arrangements for the trip back to their place of origin. Our delegations that traveled to Lagos, Nigeria were close to fifteen individuals. We did not all travel back to Calabar due to that fact that we did not get to stay in the same place. I left for Calabar early Monday morning, thinking that our ship would be returning to Cameroon on Monday night. It turned out that the ship would not depart from Calabar until early on Wednesday. The actual driving from Lagos to Calabar took place during the day. We had a very good and experience driver and he got us to Calabar in about 11 hours. The guy knew all of the back roads and used that knowledge to help us escape a lot of the traffic. We made some brief stops on our way back but overall the drive back was pretty quite. The armed police officers were still around. I guess that is just the reality of traveling in Nigeria by road. You get to pass through a lot of security. Most of the time, they just waved you through. The drivers also ignore them at times and gets away with it. Our driver knew exactly when to stop and when to just keep going. I rested a bit on Monday and spend the whole of Tuesday sight seeing in Calamari turned out that Calabar is not a bad place at all. The area is quite good for residential purpose.
The Trip Back home.
Because I made a miscalculation on when the ship was to depart from Calabar, I had to spend me night at the port in Calabar and wait for the ship to arrive on Wednesday morning. There are a lot of workers that stay at the port in Calabar and you just look for a place and spend the night. The ship arrived on Wednesday morning and it was quite a relive to see it. After the passengers got out you could go in and place you luggage and look for a place to rest inside the ship. Departure was not due until some time early in the morning on Thursday. There was news that ships do not travel at night to return to Cameroon due to one reason or the other. My guess was one of safety. Before boarding back to Cameroon you had to check in one last time with the Nigeria immigration and pay a fee of about 4000 CFA francs, about 8 dollars I would say. You are then provided with a pass that you would show to the authorities while in the ship. There would also be one more payment of about the same amount to the Cameroonian immigration authority while inside the ship and sometime before you reach Cameroon. We left Calabar about close to 6am on Thursday morning and did the returned trip on broad daylight. I had my Camera with me through the course of the journey but I did not have any films with me. I left Cameroon, thinking that I would get films while in Nigeria but it turned that they have completely move into the digital age over there. While in Cameroon you could walk into any electronic store and get films that were not the case in Nigeria. I look all over Lagos and could not find a single store and sell films for Cameras. That was the case on my way to Lagos from Calabar and during the period that I stayed in Calabar.I look everywhere but could not find any films. I was really disappointing to me. Anyway it turned out that traveling during the day in the seas is a bit turbulent during the day that at night. The sea was not really rough but it was not as smooth at during the day. The waves had arrived and you could actually feel or go outside and see and the ship did a side by side wave on the open sea. I do not get scared at all but I guess to somebody that is not used to the open sea it could be quite a trip. I did get check out areas on the ship and they had life jackets, although theirs was no mention of what to do in case of an emergency as they do on air fights. The open sea is always fascinating to me and I did like the fact that I got to go outside and take a look at the water. Oil drilling is going on and that is part of the landmark that takes you to and back from Nigeria in the open sea.
Conclusion.
Quite a trip if you asked me, I had been staying at home for quite a while and the call for adventure made me not to hesitate on making the trip. Going out in the open sea is always risky especially when you get to listen to stories of armed men boarding some of the ships to look for money. The stories that I got is that they come in a look for money and once that get the money the head out. They would only course trouble if their demands are not met. There was another story that one of the ships actually was sinking during one of those trips and a backup ship had to be sent in to move the passengers in open sea. Trying to rescue the cargo was out of the question.
Breaking Down the Samuel Eto’o- Zlatan Ibrahimovic Trade.
It’s official now as both Eto’o Fils and Zlatan Ibrahimovic have signed for their respective new clubs. Eto’o Fils moves to Inter Milan of Italy while Ibrahimovic moves to the Nou Camp of Barcelona, Spain. Inter Milan got another player in the trade in addition to some cash of close to 25 million euros. Eto’o has been unsettled in the Nou Camp in the past few seasons with constant rumors about a possible trade or move to a different club. Even after winning the prestigious champions league with the club in 2005 there was some tension in 2007 when a new coach was brought in. Eto’o did stay with the club and had his usual productive goal scoring season. This time around after winning another champions league, Barca and Eto’o agreed to split ways.
Barcelona has been making some very shrewd moves of late and none had backfired so far. They got rid of Brazilian star forward Ronaldinho two seasons ago despite the fact that he was the driving force of their 2005 champions league victory. The move did not backfire as Argentina ace Lionel Messi stepped in and carried well the play making role of the team. Ronaldinho has not been the same since leaving Barca. To his credit, he had been at the top of his game for such a long period of time before his move to AC Milan. This time FC Barcelona is getting rid of somebody that has been their top goal getter for the past four seasons. Eto’o did like to stay in Barcelona but the relationship with the current coach had gotten to the stage that the later has openly express the view that he has no future plans for the former in the club.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic is 27 years of age and so is Samuel Eto’o Fils and a straight up swap of the players would have been an even trade in my opinion. Just looking at the trade now before the players take to the field, I would have to say that Barcelona gave up much to get rid of Eto’o Fils.
Ibrahimovic can carry a club by himself partly due to his physical attributes, but he is going to a club that is full of play makers and his role in the new club would not be like the one in Inter Milan in which he was their motor. He is going into a good club though and his chances of getting a champions league ring has increased a bit. The timing is a little off as Barca is coming off a champion’s league victory last season and back to back champions’ league trophies are not easy to come by. Just ask Manchester United in their quest to repeat as champions last season. So he might have to wait a few years before getting the converted trophy.
Samuel Eto’o Fils has already gotten two of those trophies and good for him because although he is going to be making more money than he did with Barcelona, the last time an Italian team won the Champions league was when AC of Milan did it in the year 2006. I do not even remember the last time Inter of Milan won the champions league. They have been champions of the Italian league for the past two seasons.
Samuel Eto’o Fils is noted for his goal scoring ability but the Italian league is not a very friendly one for goal scorers. Defensive play is the order of the day in the league and he would not be getting as many goals as he did playing in the La Liga. The last big name that I can remember who scored goals with flair at the serie A is Marco Van Basten of AC Milan and the leading goal scorers of Europe have not been coming out of the serie A. He would have a great coach in Jose Mourinho and together they can make a move towards getting a champions league trophy for Inter Milan. It is not going to be easy at all because if I have to make a prediction now as to the favorites for that trophy next season, I would be looking at Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea, the ever present Liverpool and then maybe Inter of Milan.
It’s official now as both Eto’o Fils and Zlatan Ibrahimovic have signed for their respective new clubs. Eto’o Fils moves to Inter Milan of Italy while Ibrahimovic moves to the Nou Camp of Barcelona, Spain. Inter Milan got another player in the trade in addition to some cash of close to 25 million euros. Eto’o has been unsettled in the Nou Camp in the past few seasons with constant rumors about a possible trade or move to a different club. Even after winning the prestigious champions league with the club in 2005 there was some tension in 2007 when a new coach was brought in. Eto’o did stay with the club and had his usual productive goal scoring season. This time around after winning another champions league, Barca and Eto’o agreed to split ways.
Barcelona has been making some very shrewd moves of late and none had backfired so far. They got rid of Brazilian star forward Ronaldinho two seasons ago despite the fact that he was the driving force of their 2005 champions league victory. The move did not backfire as Argentina ace Lionel Messi stepped in and carried well the play making role of the team. Ronaldinho has not been the same since leaving Barca. To his credit, he had been at the top of his game for such a long period of time before his move to AC Milan. This time FC Barcelona is getting rid of somebody that has been their top goal getter for the past four seasons. Eto’o did like to stay in Barcelona but the relationship with the current coach had gotten to the stage that the later has openly express the view that he has no future plans for the former in the club.
Zlatan Ibrahimovic is 27 years of age and so is Samuel Eto’o Fils and a straight up swap of the players would have been an even trade in my opinion. Just looking at the trade now before the players take to the field, I would have to say that Barcelona gave up much to get rid of Eto’o Fils.
Ibrahimovic can carry a club by himself partly due to his physical attributes, but he is going to a club that is full of play makers and his role in the new club would not be like the one in Inter Milan in which he was their motor. He is going into a good club though and his chances of getting a champions league ring has increased a bit. The timing is a little off as Barca is coming off a champion’s league victory last season and back to back champions’ league trophies are not easy to come by. Just ask Manchester United in their quest to repeat as champions last season. So he might have to wait a few years before getting the converted trophy.
Samuel Eto’o Fils has already gotten two of those trophies and good for him because although he is going to be making more money than he did with Barcelona, the last time an Italian team won the Champions league was when AC of Milan did it in the year 2006. I do not even remember the last time Inter of Milan won the champions league. They have been champions of the Italian league for the past two seasons.
Samuel Eto’o Fils is noted for his goal scoring ability but the Italian league is not a very friendly one for goal scorers. Defensive play is the order of the day in the league and he would not be getting as many goals as he did playing in the La Liga. The last big name that I can remember who scored goals with flair at the serie A is Marco Van Basten of AC Milan and the leading goal scorers of Europe have not been coming out of the serie A. He would have a great coach in Jose Mourinho and together they can make a move towards getting a champions league trophy for Inter Milan. It is not going to be easy at all because if I have to make a prediction now as to the favorites for that trophy next season, I would be looking at Real Madrid, Barcelona, Chelsea, the ever present Liverpool and then maybe Inter of Milan.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
थे न्यू फस ऑफ़ वार्फर-UMV
Unmanned Vehicles
The Changing Face of War.
UMV is how they are called and it stands for unmanned vehicles meaning the aircraft is capable of performing its combat duty without a pilot being in it. This is a technology that is already being used in the war in Afghanistan and in the next war there would not be any pilots flying planes into war zones anymore.
The first advantage of this has to be the fact that a pilot can fight from the safety of his base say in the US and accomplish his mission in a war zone in say Iraq. Talk about awesome technology. No more fear about a plane being shot down and the pilot trying to eject from the cockpit. The pilots are going to be so safe that the greatest risks to their lives would be their ability to drive their cars to and from work. This is really good news for families that have been serving the nation in the capacity of fighter pilots from one generation to another.
The military is training young men that are going to be controlling the UMV of the future right now and it is believed that playing video games could give you a head start over your competitors if are planning on a future as a fighter pilot. The video games in question involved those with remote controls and in which you could do precision aiming and shooting. The idea of bombing faraway locations is not new at all. There had been for some time now missiles that could be lunched to far away locations and they are totally unmanned. But the missiles are designed to cause damage to a large area. This was the case during the early days of the Iraq invasion. Shock and awe was how it was called and a lot of work damage was done from the air by precision bombing before any allied soldier touch the ground in Iraq.
The UMV are capable of targeting much smaller areas like people coming in and out of a building. This way a pilot can be in a base in Nevada and target and take out two or three individuals as far away as Afghanistan. It is believe that this is the manner in which some of the leaders of Al-Qaeda are being targeted and killed. With the public increasingly demanding that soldiers be pulled out of combat zones this is going to be a real good way for wars to be fought without a lot of casualties and terrorist could also be targeted and eliminated from far away locations without the lost of human life.
Some of the disadvantageous of UMV are that once they are lunched and reach their location the mission cannot be aborted. With a manned aircraft the pilot can make a decision once he reaches his destination as to whether he should carry out the strike or not. This is good in case there is a mistake and the target areas happen to include a lot of civilians. The UMV would not be capable of doing that, at least the ones that are being produced now. That might change in the future. Another disadvantage would be that there would be one less excuse not to go to war. The outcry about lost life would be lessened and those in charge would have an easy excuse to go to war.
The war on the ground still needs to be fought and the UMV are not going to replace the soldiers on the ground. The infantry has been an integral part of warfare since the early ages of war and that is not going to change in the future. The soldiers on the ground though are going to be getting more assistance from the guys with remote controls in far away locations.
The US had gotten the head start on UMV but they are not the only nation that is producing these vehicles. All of the big guys in terms of military strength like China, Russia, France, Great Britain, India just to name a few are all in the race to revolutionized how wars are going to be fought in the future.
The Changing Face of War.
UMV is how they are called and it stands for unmanned vehicles meaning the aircraft is capable of performing its combat duty without a pilot being in it. This is a technology that is already being used in the war in Afghanistan and in the next war there would not be any pilots flying planes into war zones anymore.
The first advantage of this has to be the fact that a pilot can fight from the safety of his base say in the US and accomplish his mission in a war zone in say Iraq. Talk about awesome technology. No more fear about a plane being shot down and the pilot trying to eject from the cockpit. The pilots are going to be so safe that the greatest risks to their lives would be their ability to drive their cars to and from work. This is really good news for families that have been serving the nation in the capacity of fighter pilots from one generation to another.
The military is training young men that are going to be controlling the UMV of the future right now and it is believed that playing video games could give you a head start over your competitors if are planning on a future as a fighter pilot. The video games in question involved those with remote controls and in which you could do precision aiming and shooting. The idea of bombing faraway locations is not new at all. There had been for some time now missiles that could be lunched to far away locations and they are totally unmanned. But the missiles are designed to cause damage to a large area. This was the case during the early days of the Iraq invasion. Shock and awe was how it was called and a lot of work damage was done from the air by precision bombing before any allied soldier touch the ground in Iraq.
The UMV are capable of targeting much smaller areas like people coming in and out of a building. This way a pilot can be in a base in Nevada and target and take out two or three individuals as far away as Afghanistan. It is believe that this is the manner in which some of the leaders of Al-Qaeda are being targeted and killed. With the public increasingly demanding that soldiers be pulled out of combat zones this is going to be a real good way for wars to be fought without a lot of casualties and terrorist could also be targeted and eliminated from far away locations without the lost of human life.
Some of the disadvantageous of UMV are that once they are lunched and reach their location the mission cannot be aborted. With a manned aircraft the pilot can make a decision once he reaches his destination as to whether he should carry out the strike or not. This is good in case there is a mistake and the target areas happen to include a lot of civilians. The UMV would not be capable of doing that, at least the ones that are being produced now. That might change in the future. Another disadvantage would be that there would be one less excuse not to go to war. The outcry about lost life would be lessened and those in charge would have an easy excuse to go to war.
The war on the ground still needs to be fought and the UMV are not going to replace the soldiers on the ground. The infantry has been an integral part of warfare since the early ages of war and that is not going to change in the future. The soldiers on the ground though are going to be getting more assistance from the guys with remote controls in far away locations.
The US had gotten the head start on UMV but they are not the only nation that is producing these vehicles. All of the big guys in terms of military strength like China, Russia, France, Great Britain, India just to name a few are all in the race to revolutionized how wars are going to be fought in the future.
Monday, July 27, 2009
थे मोवे तोवार्द्स मकिंग वीड लेगल इन थे स्टेट ऑफ़ California
The State of California is moving towards legalizing Weed.
The State of California has been debating for some time now whether to make the use of marijuana legal. There have been discussions ongoing for sometime now but their legislative body is now seriously moving towards voting on a bill that would make the drug legal in the state. The State of California is known for its forward thinking and if they go ahead and okay the legalization, they would be the first state to do so in the US. Other states would follow naturally. When I was living in Maryland, there was talk of trying to legalize marijuana for medical purpose but the movement never gathered enough steam for it to move into the local Congress. The fear at the time was that a lot of people that use the drug for recreational purposes would be flooding doctor’s offices to get prescription for illnesses that are invincible.
There are medical purposes for marijuana use like the easing up of pain. But once the drug gets legalized people that use it for recreational purposes would not need to be hiding from the police anymore. The drug is still considered illegal in the US, but it is not by any means the main cause of worry for law enforcement officers. That would be crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Some sports organization do not even at the moment test for marijuana use when they are conducting their mandatory drug test. If you openly claim that you are using weed as the drug is popularly known, then the authorities would be embarrassed not to do something about it. But they do not go out of their way to look for persons that use marijuana for recreational purposes.
Employers do test for it though. Most companies would put you through a drug test before they hire you and if you come out with a marijuana positive test, they would not hire you. The fear is that if you are doing weed, then you are capable of much more. That is the main criticism that is going to come out, if the state of California does go ahead and legalize the use of marijuana. There are going to be complains that once people get tired of using the drug, they would start looking for something stronger. Getting a stronger fix after the intrigue has been taking out of the use of weed.
The State of California has a huge budget deficit that is now at about 25billion dollars and there is little doubt that part of the drive to get the drug legalized now is to raise some funds in a move towards bringing down that deficit. Once the drug is made legal then the state can tax the sale of the drug and thus raise additional revenue.
The use of marijuana is by no means going to be without its drawbacks whether it is made legal or not. Like any drug there would be people that would abuse it. It is just like cigarette or alcohol. There is nothing like a safe limit to it. If you drink alcohol or smoke cigarette even at a small level, it kills you gently. Marijuana is that way also. I know people that have been taking marijuana since they were in their teens and they still have their entire faculty together in their forties. I also do know a lot of people that have gone totally mad from taking the drug over an extended period of time. So either way, legal or not, the drug would still kill you or make you go mad if you abuse over a period of time.
The State of California has been debating for some time now whether to make the use of marijuana legal. There have been discussions ongoing for sometime now but their legislative body is now seriously moving towards voting on a bill that would make the drug legal in the state. The State of California is known for its forward thinking and if they go ahead and okay the legalization, they would be the first state to do so in the US. Other states would follow naturally. When I was living in Maryland, there was talk of trying to legalize marijuana for medical purpose but the movement never gathered enough steam for it to move into the local Congress. The fear at the time was that a lot of people that use the drug for recreational purposes would be flooding doctor’s offices to get prescription for illnesses that are invincible.
There are medical purposes for marijuana use like the easing up of pain. But once the drug gets legalized people that use it for recreational purposes would not need to be hiding from the police anymore. The drug is still considered illegal in the US, but it is not by any means the main cause of worry for law enforcement officers. That would be crack cocaine and powder cocaine. Some sports organization do not even at the moment test for marijuana use when they are conducting their mandatory drug test. If you openly claim that you are using weed as the drug is popularly known, then the authorities would be embarrassed not to do something about it. But they do not go out of their way to look for persons that use marijuana for recreational purposes.
Employers do test for it though. Most companies would put you through a drug test before they hire you and if you come out with a marijuana positive test, they would not hire you. The fear is that if you are doing weed, then you are capable of much more. That is the main criticism that is going to come out, if the state of California does go ahead and legalize the use of marijuana. There are going to be complains that once people get tired of using the drug, they would start looking for something stronger. Getting a stronger fix after the intrigue has been taking out of the use of weed.
The State of California has a huge budget deficit that is now at about 25billion dollars and there is little doubt that part of the drive to get the drug legalized now is to raise some funds in a move towards bringing down that deficit. Once the drug is made legal then the state can tax the sale of the drug and thus raise additional revenue.
The use of marijuana is by no means going to be without its drawbacks whether it is made legal or not. Like any drug there would be people that would abuse it. It is just like cigarette or alcohol. There is nothing like a safe limit to it. If you drink alcohol or smoke cigarette even at a small level, it kills you gently. Marijuana is that way also. I know people that have been taking marijuana since they were in their teens and they still have their entire faculty together in their forties. I also do know a lot of people that have gone totally mad from taking the drug over an extended period of time. So either way, legal or not, the drug would still kill you or make you go mad if you abuse over a period of time.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
The State of The Presbyterian Church
I attend a church here in town and I have been doing so now for about the last two months. The last two weeks though I did not attend service at all and that are because of a number of reasons. There are two mains churches in this country which are the Catholic Church and the Presbyterian Church. I am a member of the Presbyterian Church and I have been since I was a little child. Church service in my childhood used to last for a maximum of two hours. That was the case throughout the year except when there were special occasions like thanksgiving and other special ceremonies such as church marriages and the service would then be extended.
The Catholic Church though for the few instances that I have attended is always constant in that their service runs between one hour to one hour and a half. They never go over one hour and the half despite the fact that they take communion each and every Sunday.
Part of the reason that the Presbyterian Church takes longer is that people come to the church to try and raise money for one project or the other. For example, the Christian Youth Fellowship of the said Presbyterian Church in the past two weeks lunched a CD in church that they have been working on for some time. There is nothing wrong in lunching a CD and raising money in church but the money raising aspect of the business just dominated the whole church service of that day. The service started at about 9am and did not finish until about 1.30pm, that is about 4.30 hours of church service. Too long in my opinion especially if you are trying to recruit more members into your service.
The Catholic Church has the advantage in that they raise money to run their church services from a central location and they have been around much longer than the Presbyterian Church. So they have more funds in their bank accounts. The Presbyterian Church can also raise money from private service out of church service time. In the case of the CD lunch that happened in my church, what I think they could have done is announced that a CD has been released and get people to purchase the CD and make other donations when the main church service is over. That way people who came to church service to worship would do that and leave if they are not interested in purchasing the CD. There are a lot of people with money in the area and they would donate money to the Church if you contact them privately. The church has elders and part of the duties of the elders in my opinion should be to try and raise money for various projects of the church. They can do that during the course of the week.
People come to church and take pride in announcing large donations that they are making to the church. I do not know whether they actually do give the money to the Church, but God knows how much you contribute to his course and you do not need to make a grand announcement of it. There is some sort of a competition going on in my opinion and it seems as if some people are using the church to show off the financial success that they have achieved somewhere else. I think there are a lot of ways in which you could let the world know that you have money and the church is not a place for that. What the Church can do if people that make donations to it need to make the rest of the world know, is to create like a balance sheet at the end of each 6 months or a year and make the announcement during the year end service. That way people would come to church and do what the church service is intended for, which is a place for people to come and worship. This is one aspect that the church has to work on.
Attending church is good because each and every one of us has to have a faith in which they believe in. The Presbyterian Church is also lively in that they have various groups that light up the service with singing and makes the place more human.
The Catholic Church though for the few instances that I have attended is always constant in that their service runs between one hour to one hour and a half. They never go over one hour and the half despite the fact that they take communion each and every Sunday.
Part of the reason that the Presbyterian Church takes longer is that people come to the church to try and raise money for one project or the other. For example, the Christian Youth Fellowship of the said Presbyterian Church in the past two weeks lunched a CD in church that they have been working on for some time. There is nothing wrong in lunching a CD and raising money in church but the money raising aspect of the business just dominated the whole church service of that day. The service started at about 9am and did not finish until about 1.30pm, that is about 4.30 hours of church service. Too long in my opinion especially if you are trying to recruit more members into your service.
The Catholic Church has the advantage in that they raise money to run their church services from a central location and they have been around much longer than the Presbyterian Church. So they have more funds in their bank accounts. The Presbyterian Church can also raise money from private service out of church service time. In the case of the CD lunch that happened in my church, what I think they could have done is announced that a CD has been released and get people to purchase the CD and make other donations when the main church service is over. That way people who came to church service to worship would do that and leave if they are not interested in purchasing the CD. There are a lot of people with money in the area and they would donate money to the Church if you contact them privately. The church has elders and part of the duties of the elders in my opinion should be to try and raise money for various projects of the church. They can do that during the course of the week.
People come to church and take pride in announcing large donations that they are making to the church. I do not know whether they actually do give the money to the Church, but God knows how much you contribute to his course and you do not need to make a grand announcement of it. There is some sort of a competition going on in my opinion and it seems as if some people are using the church to show off the financial success that they have achieved somewhere else. I think there are a lot of ways in which you could let the world know that you have money and the church is not a place for that. What the Church can do if people that make donations to it need to make the rest of the world know, is to create like a balance sheet at the end of each 6 months or a year and make the announcement during the year end service. That way people would come to church and do what the church service is intended for, which is a place for people to come and worship. This is one aspect that the church has to work on.
Attending church is good because each and every one of us has to have a faith in which they believe in. The Presbyterian Church is also lively in that they have various groups that light up the service with singing and makes the place more human.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
देअलिंग विथ थे Police
Dealing with the Police.
Do not make a bad situation worse.
Most of the time, the police would not stop you for any unjust reason. The majority of the cases in which the situation gets to the stage in which you find yourself in handcuffs could be avoided if you have gotten an education as to how to deal with the police. I have being stopped a lot of times and I have had the police call on me a few times for one reason or the other. In the majority of the cases the situation did not get to the point of you being arrested if you have been educated. The Police force goes through a training program in which they are told on how to react on various situations. They are doing their job and they would get nasty at times if they demand for something simple as for you to show them your ID card and you start making smart comments to them.
I read an article on the Washington Post about an African American that was arrested and had to spend the night in jail because of a twenty five dollar traffic ticket that he had forgotten to pay due to one reason or the other.
Harvard professor Louise Gates got arrested at his own home recently and this has brought out the issue of how African Americans and Hispanics are dealt with in various communities throughout the nation by the police. There are my tips on how to deal with the police if you ever happen to find yourself in a situation involving them.
1-Stay calm.
This is like the number one way to get away easily when dealing with them. If you are nervous while talking to them or you are acting funny, then they know that you are trying to hide something from them and they would react according.
2-Do what they demand you to do.
If they are asking you for your driver license and car registration, provide it to them. What they do is they go to their computer and check to make sure that you are not a wanted person or you do no have any outstanding traffic tickets. If you know that you are clean, give them the document and they would come back in a couple of minutes after checking their computers and explained to you why you got stopped the first place. A few of them might asked you to do something ridiculous like saying the alphabet and you do it and they would explained to you why you are being pulled over and you would be out of the situation. The details about the Professors case are still coming out and it would be nice to wait for some time to get all the facts before trying to go prosecute all the police men.
3-If they decide to put you under arrest do not get nasty with them.
The police might decide to arrest you after pulling you over for one reason or the order. What they do at this time is they call for backup. Once you find yourself is this type of a situation, you know you are screwed and there is nothing you can do about it. This is not the end of the world. The US has a great judiciary system and you would get your day in court. Spending a night in jail is bad, but if you decide to fight them and resist arrest, you only aggravate the situation.
The police are not above the law and if you think that you were not treated fairly during a traffic stop or the police harassed you for one reason or the other you can report them to the right authority in your county. There are authorities that deal with police brutality and if you lay a legitimate complain, somebody would look into it. Remember, they are the ones that are there to uphold the law and they have been giving guidelines to follow. They are also armed and you do not want to get yourself in a situation in which you are being shot at. Some innocent individuals have being killed for trying to proof tough and the law would give the police officer the benefit of doubt in a court of law. If you have nothing to hide, that would come out in court. I personally had a situation in which the police officer acted out of hand but the charges against me were all thrown out once we got to court. As I walk out of the courtroom you could see the embarrassment at the officer’s face in the courthouse.
Do not make a bad situation worse.
Most of the time, the police would not stop you for any unjust reason. The majority of the cases in which the situation gets to the stage in which you find yourself in handcuffs could be avoided if you have gotten an education as to how to deal with the police. I have being stopped a lot of times and I have had the police call on me a few times for one reason or the other. In the majority of the cases the situation did not get to the point of you being arrested if you have been educated. The Police force goes through a training program in which they are told on how to react on various situations. They are doing their job and they would get nasty at times if they demand for something simple as for you to show them your ID card and you start making smart comments to them.
I read an article on the Washington Post about an African American that was arrested and had to spend the night in jail because of a twenty five dollar traffic ticket that he had forgotten to pay due to one reason or the other.
Harvard professor Louise Gates got arrested at his own home recently and this has brought out the issue of how African Americans and Hispanics are dealt with in various communities throughout the nation by the police. There are my tips on how to deal with the police if you ever happen to find yourself in a situation involving them.
1-Stay calm.
This is like the number one way to get away easily when dealing with them. If you are nervous while talking to them or you are acting funny, then they know that you are trying to hide something from them and they would react according.
2-Do what they demand you to do.
If they are asking you for your driver license and car registration, provide it to them. What they do is they go to their computer and check to make sure that you are not a wanted person or you do no have any outstanding traffic tickets. If you know that you are clean, give them the document and they would come back in a couple of minutes after checking their computers and explained to you why you got stopped the first place. A few of them might asked you to do something ridiculous like saying the alphabet and you do it and they would explained to you why you are being pulled over and you would be out of the situation. The details about the Professors case are still coming out and it would be nice to wait for some time to get all the facts before trying to go prosecute all the police men.
3-If they decide to put you under arrest do not get nasty with them.
The police might decide to arrest you after pulling you over for one reason or the order. What they do at this time is they call for backup. Once you find yourself is this type of a situation, you know you are screwed and there is nothing you can do about it. This is not the end of the world. The US has a great judiciary system and you would get your day in court. Spending a night in jail is bad, but if you decide to fight them and resist arrest, you only aggravate the situation.
The police are not above the law and if you think that you were not treated fairly during a traffic stop or the police harassed you for one reason or the other you can report them to the right authority in your county. There are authorities that deal with police brutality and if you lay a legitimate complain, somebody would look into it. Remember, they are the ones that are there to uphold the law and they have been giving guidelines to follow. They are also armed and you do not want to get yourself in a situation in which you are being shot at. Some innocent individuals have being killed for trying to proof tough and the law would give the police officer the benefit of doubt in a court of law. If you have nothing to hide, that would come out in court. I personally had a situation in which the police officer acted out of hand but the charges against me were all thrown out once we got to court. As I walk out of the courtroom you could see the embarrassment at the officer’s face in the courthouse.
प्रेजिडेंट पॉल बिया ओं ओफ्फिसिअल विसित तो France
The President of the Republic of Cameroon is currently on an official visit to France with his wife Chantal Biya. This is from an invitation from French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The French were the main colonial masters of this central African nation that gained independence in 1960 and the relationship between the two nations have stayed cordial ever since. In the two major cities in the Republic of Cameroon, which are Douala and Yaoundé, a lot of the major infrastructures are all built by the French. They are also the main source of external support to this nation.
The relationship though between the citizens is a little bit strained in my opinion. Part of the reason being that quite a few individuals that need visas to go to France for one reason or another have to go through a rigorous process in order to obtain one. In a lot of cases they are flat out refused one. The individuals from this nation thought still fight hard to try and get to France in hope of bettering their economic situation. Economics is the primary reason for most of the individuals here trying to migrate to France, thought there are also cases of people going for medical and business purposes.
In the long term, the individuals of this nation and all of Africa as a whole have to seriously start to look for solutions for their own problems. That would be the way for them to get out of the situation in which most of the nations find themselves in. Foreign aid comes with a lot of baggage attach to it and after years and years of continues borrowing from industrialized nations and organizations such as the World bank and the International Monetary Fund, the nations in this part of the world are still lacking in terms of development. A couple of years ago, before the economic crisis hit the world, the World Bank and a few industrialized nations started a program of debt forgiveness. The program was called HIPC.HIPC stands for heavily indebted Poor nations. There was a lot of noise when the announcement was made and this nation was amongst those selected for their debts to be forgiven. Some of the nations that miss the cut complained that they were being punished for paying back their debts on time and that the nations that were selected would just go back to their old ways of borrowing and spending. I have been around this nation now since 2005 and I am yet to see that mark that the program left. I do not see any good use that the money was put into. There is very little talk now about HPIC funds and I am afraid that the funds from the program have probably just disappeared.
People of these nations have to start looking for other alternatives to solve their problems. There is a little bit of this going on now as individuals have been flooding other foreign embassies such as the US and Great Britain. They are looking for a place to migrate to or to go further their education. Financial aid is also provided by these two countries. The Italians, the Dutch and the Chinese are also present in the country providing one some of assistance or the other.
Not all the foreign nationals that are in the country are for aid. Quite a few are there for investment. Something that the government encourages as the investment would provide employment of one form or the other to the inhabitants in this nation.
The Chinese are in Douala, the economic capital of this nation and they are the most recent of the arrivals. They came in around the early 1990s and they are now involved in activities ranging from shop owners to fishermen in the seas around the area. It is funny how some individuals here are struggling to get out this nation to go overseas and yet you get people like the Chinese coming in and going what the locals here are involved in. Some of them come and get Cameroonian nationality.
The relationship though between the citizens is a little bit strained in my opinion. Part of the reason being that quite a few individuals that need visas to go to France for one reason or another have to go through a rigorous process in order to obtain one. In a lot of cases they are flat out refused one. The individuals from this nation thought still fight hard to try and get to France in hope of bettering their economic situation. Economics is the primary reason for most of the individuals here trying to migrate to France, thought there are also cases of people going for medical and business purposes.
In the long term, the individuals of this nation and all of Africa as a whole have to seriously start to look for solutions for their own problems. That would be the way for them to get out of the situation in which most of the nations find themselves in. Foreign aid comes with a lot of baggage attach to it and after years and years of continues borrowing from industrialized nations and organizations such as the World bank and the International Monetary Fund, the nations in this part of the world are still lacking in terms of development. A couple of years ago, before the economic crisis hit the world, the World Bank and a few industrialized nations started a program of debt forgiveness. The program was called HIPC.HIPC stands for heavily indebted Poor nations. There was a lot of noise when the announcement was made and this nation was amongst those selected for their debts to be forgiven. Some of the nations that miss the cut complained that they were being punished for paying back their debts on time and that the nations that were selected would just go back to their old ways of borrowing and spending. I have been around this nation now since 2005 and I am yet to see that mark that the program left. I do not see any good use that the money was put into. There is very little talk now about HPIC funds and I am afraid that the funds from the program have probably just disappeared.
People of these nations have to start looking for other alternatives to solve their problems. There is a little bit of this going on now as individuals have been flooding other foreign embassies such as the US and Great Britain. They are looking for a place to migrate to or to go further their education. Financial aid is also provided by these two countries. The Italians, the Dutch and the Chinese are also present in the country providing one some of assistance or the other.
Not all the foreign nationals that are in the country are for aid. Quite a few are there for investment. Something that the government encourages as the investment would provide employment of one form or the other to the inhabitants in this nation.
The Chinese are in Douala, the economic capital of this nation and they are the most recent of the arrivals. They came in around the early 1990s and they are now involved in activities ranging from shop owners to fishermen in the seas around the area. It is funny how some individuals here are struggling to get out this nation to go overseas and yet you get people like the Chinese coming in and going what the locals here are involved in. Some of them come and get Cameroonian nationality.
Friday, July 24, 2009
थे २००९ टूर दे France
The 2009 edition of the Tour the France will come to and end this coming Sunday and it looks like Spaniard Alberto Contador will be the winner. He won the race in 2007 and he is one of only few riders in history to have won all three of the grand races. That is the tour of Italy, the tour of Spain and the tour de France. This will be his second tour the France victory and he is just 24 years of age. There is enough time for him to reach the magical number of winning five tours the France races that would put him in the legend category.
Contador had to content with teammate Lance Armstrong of the US who early in the race had a two seconds lead over him. That was before the race got into the mountain stages. The mountains are where the tour is won and Alberto showed his strength by winner the crucial stage 15 mountain stages in the Alps. He followed that victory with an individual time trial victory on stage 18 yesterday that all but sealed the victory for him. So barring any catastrophic injury in the rest of the stages, he should keep the yellow jersey that he is wearing come Sunday when the race ends in Paris France.
Alberto Contador rides for team Astana and there was talk of a possible friction when last summer Lance Armstrong decided to come out of retirement and set as one of his goals, winning the tour de France. So going into the event Armstrong and Contador were almost like co-leaders of the team. After Contador made that great breakaway move on the 15th stage and won the stage, he had a comfortable enough lead over Armstrong for the later to concede that Contador is indeed the better rider.
If you have been watching past tour de France races like I have, there is always a stage when the winner takes total command of the race and that moment occurred on stage 15. Contador made his move on the last of the mountain climbs and finish close to two minutes ahead of the other race contenders.
Contador had to content with teammate Lance Armstrong of the US who early in the race had a two seconds lead over him. That was before the race got into the mountain stages. The mountains are where the tour is won and Alberto showed his strength by winner the crucial stage 15 mountain stages in the Alps. He followed that victory with an individual time trial victory on stage 18 yesterday that all but sealed the victory for him. So barring any catastrophic injury in the rest of the stages, he should keep the yellow jersey that he is wearing come Sunday when the race ends in Paris France.
Alberto Contador rides for team Astana and there was talk of a possible friction when last summer Lance Armstrong decided to come out of retirement and set as one of his goals, winning the tour de France. So going into the event Armstrong and Contador were almost like co-leaders of the team. After Contador made that great breakaway move on the 15th stage and won the stage, he had a comfortable enough lead over Armstrong for the later to concede that Contador is indeed the better rider.
If you have been watching past tour de France races like I have, there is always a stage when the winner takes total command of the race and that moment occurred on stage 15. Contador made his move on the last of the mountain climbs and finish close to two minutes ahead of the other race contenders.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
न्यू हेड कोच फॉर थे इन्दोमिताब्ले Lions
The indomitable Lions started the second part of the African Nations Cup/World cup 2010 qualifiers by losing their first game to Togo by 1-0 on a neutral ground. They followed that performance with a 0-0 draw with Morocco at home in Yaoundé, giving them just 1 point out of a possible six in a group in which just one team is to qualify for the 2010 world cup competition in South Africa.
They just hired a new coach in Frenchman Paul Le Guen but that would be reacting a little bit too late in my opinion. The team has been good for a very long time but it has also been plague by constant problems. The best example has to be when the team qualified for the 2002 world cup that was held in Japan and South Korea. The team was at its peak at that time, just coming off back to back African nations cup victories in 2000 and early 2002. The main problem that they had at that time was one of money. It looked like at the time the authorities in charge were very slow in making payments to the players and the team got held up in France on their way to the Far East.
Their first match in that competition was against the Republic of Ireland. They showed up just 24 hours before kickoff in that game and ended up pulling a one all tie on their way to crashing out of the competition in the first round. You could just see the fatigue in the players during the second half of play in that match against the Republic of Ireland.
After that competition, tragedy struck when Marc Vivien Foe collapse and died on the pitch during the confederation cup in 2003 and the team has never been the same since then.
The current coach is coming in with the ambition of taking the team to the World cup in South Africa but he is coming in a little bit too late. For some time now the public has been screaming that the players are getting old and change needs to be made but nobody in the Football authorities was listening. The team made it to the finals of the 2006 African Cup of nations in Ghana, but they played a totally different type of football to make it that far into the competition. If you watched the team during their 2000 and 2002 run they were dominating teams during the African cup of Nations competition. That was not the case though in the 2006 competition held in Ghana. Egypt exposed the team greatly and coach Otto Pfizer had to go very defensive in the later part of the competition for the team to make it that far.
The team did qualify for the second round of the current qualifiers, but they had some close calls with some very weak teams. They pulled a tie with Cape Verde away from home and had to be rescued by a late Samuel Eto-o goal to beat Cape Verde by two goals to one in the returned leg match at their home field.
The team started making changes recently but that was after their poor result during the first two games. Now they would have to win the remainder of their games to get a chance at qualifying. That is going to be very difficult considering the fact that the team is having problems both defensively and offensively. During the games against Togo and Morocco, very few goal scoring chances were created and this is not something that a new coach is going to fix right away. Also the new players that are going to be brought in would need some time to blend as a unit. The new coach would be lucky if the team qualifies for the African Cup of Nations competition in Angola next year. They need to finish third out of four teams to make it into that competition.
They just hired a new coach in Frenchman Paul Le Guen but that would be reacting a little bit too late in my opinion. The team has been good for a very long time but it has also been plague by constant problems. The best example has to be when the team qualified for the 2002 world cup that was held in Japan and South Korea. The team was at its peak at that time, just coming off back to back African nations cup victories in 2000 and early 2002. The main problem that they had at that time was one of money. It looked like at the time the authorities in charge were very slow in making payments to the players and the team got held up in France on their way to the Far East.
Their first match in that competition was against the Republic of Ireland. They showed up just 24 hours before kickoff in that game and ended up pulling a one all tie on their way to crashing out of the competition in the first round. You could just see the fatigue in the players during the second half of play in that match against the Republic of Ireland.
After that competition, tragedy struck when Marc Vivien Foe collapse and died on the pitch during the confederation cup in 2003 and the team has never been the same since then.
The current coach is coming in with the ambition of taking the team to the World cup in South Africa but he is coming in a little bit too late. For some time now the public has been screaming that the players are getting old and change needs to be made but nobody in the Football authorities was listening. The team made it to the finals of the 2006 African Cup of nations in Ghana, but they played a totally different type of football to make it that far into the competition. If you watched the team during their 2000 and 2002 run they were dominating teams during the African cup of Nations competition. That was not the case though in the 2006 competition held in Ghana. Egypt exposed the team greatly and coach Otto Pfizer had to go very defensive in the later part of the competition for the team to make it that far.
The team did qualify for the second round of the current qualifiers, but they had some close calls with some very weak teams. They pulled a tie with Cape Verde away from home and had to be rescued by a late Samuel Eto-o goal to beat Cape Verde by two goals to one in the returned leg match at their home field.
The team started making changes recently but that was after their poor result during the first two games. Now they would have to win the remainder of their games to get a chance at qualifying. That is going to be very difficult considering the fact that the team is having problems both defensively and offensively. During the games against Togo and Morocco, very few goal scoring chances were created and this is not something that a new coach is going to fix right away. Also the new players that are going to be brought in would need some time to blend as a unit. The new coach would be lucky if the team qualifies for the African Cup of Nations competition in Angola next year. They need to finish third out of four teams to make it into that competition.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Working for Sprint Pcs
I joined Sprint Pcs in the early part of the month of January 1999 and I worked for them for a period of about a year and a half.Getting into Sprint Pcs was not very difficult for me because I had some connections there.They do have a very strict background check procedure though that takes some time before you can begin working with them.I knew a few people at Sprint Pcs who had worked with me at Circuit City and some had important positions at the company.Jay Freshchi(I hope I got the name right was a district manager at the company).The interview that I did before being hired was conducted an the store in Baltimore inner harbor.That location was fully staffed so I could not be hired there.There was going to be a new location in a place called Columbia,Maryland.The store would be located in an old shopping center called Dobbin shopping center.I was interviewed by Brian Pierce who was the assistant manager at the Baltimore store and he was going to maintain the same position at the Columbia Dobbin Shopping center store.
The interview procedure was quite lengthy but it was not unpleasant.The only surprise for me during the interview process was that the person who was going to be the manager at the Baltimore store during my interview but choose not to take to me at the time.He just had one question and that was whether I planned on staying with Sprint Pcs for a while.
After the initial interview a background check is conducted and later on the company send me a kit to go to a lab in Wheaton to conduct a drug test.Once I got to this level I knew that I would get the job because that was the final huddle before you are send an offer letter.I did get the offer letter sometime in December and it was a pretty good offer and I was schedule to start work in the early part of January 1999
The initial staff
The initial staff at the Columbia store consisted of me,Eric Tambe,a Nigerian called Clement Oshin was going to be the manager of the store.Brian Pierce was going to be the Assistant manager.Pierce had the most knowledge about Sprint Pcs at the time.He had been with the company since its inception as Sprint Spectrum.I was surprised that he was not going to be the manager,that they were going to put an African-American in front of him in the store.He did not complain though and he spend most of the time training all of us.There was also Danny Chou who was from South Korea,a 19 year old with a big mouth.There was Heather Moore and Jason.So in total there was seven of us in the store.A manager,an assistant manager,a technician/warehouse guy and four sales persons to begin with.
The first few weeks at work consisted of on the job training and selling to make some money for myself.The training was done mainly by Brian Pierce and Jason who was the lead sales person.The role of the lead sales person is to make money for himself to begin with and assist the rest of the sales staff when the manager and assistant manager are not around.Jason had been around with the company during its early days as Sprint Spectrum.
How we got paid
The pay structure consisted of an hourly rated of 12 dollars.This is when you put in the regular 40hours of work.We got paid overtime for hours worked in the week over 40.The overtime pay was time and the half.On holidays if you were scheduled to work the rate goes to double.The hourly rated itself was so good that in some two weeks of work my regular salary which is the hourly rate came to around 1200 dollars after taxes.This was better than my two weeks of commission pay at Circuit City during most of the year.The next part of the pay structure was the commission.We got paid a commission for selling rate plans and accessories for the cellphones.The rate plans ranged from 29.99 to 199.99.The most popular rate plan that we sold was the 49.99 rate plan.Each month we were given a number of telephones as our target to sell.If you go past that number something called an accelerator kicks in.What the accelerator does is that it automatically starts paying you at a much higher rate for each telephone that you sell pass your target.A typical good month for me consisted of a gross pay of close to 6500 dollars a month.For the first year that I worked for Sprint Pcs my gross salary came to 65,000 dollars which is the most money that I have made in a year period.The next year I was on pace to make around 50,000 before I left the company to join AT@T wireless.
Other benefits.
We got a health plan benefit that the company paid for.This was for the basic service.If you wanted more then you got to pay additional for it.I did get to use the health benefit while at Sprint Pcs because I had to remove a growth on the back of my head.The doctors had to do it twice and the company paid for everything.We were also offered dental health care.You could go get your teeth clean and get some surgical work done on the expense of the company.I believed that I had some work done on my teeth during this period and the company paid for the part that was non-cosmetic.
There was also a stock purchase plan that you could take advantage of.The company allowed you to purchase stock at a discount during each quarter and brokerage house Charles Schwab was responsible for taking care of the stock transactions.I believe that I made quite a bit of money buying Sprint Pcs stock and selling it quarterly.
Training.
The official training that I got while at Sprint Pcs took consisted of about a week of classes.The training involved the learning of a new software that the company used to sell,program and set up services for the customers.I had gotten a head start on this in the store but the training went into more details and by the time that the classes were over the minor details that you were missing in the store all fell into place.During the course of the year there were other training sessions organized by the company during periods when new products were introduced.
The Merger with Mci WorldCom.
Towards the second part of the year 1999 Sprint Pcs and Mci Worldcom made a joined announcement that both companies are going to merge.The news of the merger was hailed by wall street as the stocks of both companies headed upwards in a hurry.I believe Sprint Pcs stock when from about 65 to like 130 and there was a stock split.Personally the news about the merger did not mean a lot to me at the time it was announced.That was because I had not been with a company that when through a merger and so the consequences like job loss and closing down of some stores did not register at the time.The merger did not go through though because of anti-trust regulations from the security and exchange commission.The merger of the two giants was deemed to be a threat to free competition.
Dealing with the customers.
For the most part the customers that we got in the Columbia part of town were pretty educated and nice people.They came into the store,we explained to them what we offered and they pretty much made a buying decision on the spot.Selling the phones and services was relatively straightforward because of our sales experience and the tools that the company provided us to carry on with our job.One of the problems that we faced came from the coverage area that Sprint Pcs offered.If you listen to the advertisements that the company ran Sprint Pcs was hailed as a nationwide digital coverage service.This was true to an extend.All of the major cities had coverage.The problem was when you ventured into rural areas.There,the coverage was light to put it mildly.The company tried to tackle the problem by selling dual band phones that allowed you to automatically switch into Cingular wireless coverage area and you pay a roaming charge.For the most part though the customers did not want to pay anything extra so you took your chances that they would stay within the coverage area of the company.We did get complains also about drop calls.This one was major.You are in the middle of a conversation in the Beltway or any other highway and your signals just goes off.The call drops.The company also worked had to fix the problem.At the time that I worked for Sprint Pcs,if I had to rate the wireless companies in terms of coverage I would say the first was Verizon Wireless,next AT@T wireless and then Sprint Pcs.Our marketing strategy was working though because the service was popular and we were selling a ton of telephones.
The Migration Period
Sprint Pcs started out as Sprint Spectrum around the 1995 period and they were mainly based in the East Coast of the United States.They used a technology called GSM for their services.GSM service is popular in the rest of the World but at the time that Sprint introduced it the technology was not used by most of the cellular telephone companies.After about three years of playing around with GSM Sprint the mother company of Sprint Spectrum decided to built an all digital nationwide network based on TDMA technology.The company was going to be called Sprint Pcs and it would be run as a separate entity.It would sell mainly wireless services and it would have its own tracking stock.So when I joined the new company they had customers who were using the GSM network and some that were using the new TDMA network.The companies vision was clear though,push the new TDMA technology but do not send away customers that insisted on buying a GSM telephone.This all changed about the mid-point of 1999 when the company decided to do away with the GSM network and moved everybody to the TDMA network.The process of transferring customers to the new network was called migration.
The company anticipated and rightly that there was going to be a huge rush of traffic into the stores and they took some steps to take care of the rush.The first step was to hire some temporary help.We got about a total of ten temporary workers during this period.The next was to get security into the stores.In our location we got Maryland police officers who were putting in the extra hours as part of a part time job.The officers were lively people and we had a lot of fun during the period that they were in the store.From sports stories telling to jokes,the officers were up to the task.They were also armed, although we did not get the type of trouble that needed them to use their firearms.
Why I left Sprint Pcs.
Looking back now I wonder why I left Sprint Pcs to join AT@T wireless.Both companies sell the same type of products and the pay scale is about the same.I believe one of the reasons that I left is that the amount of money that I made during the first year working for Sprint Pcs could not be duplicated in the second year.The very good first year made us the employees think that what we made in that initial year could be duplicated year in year out.When reality set in we started looking for alternate places to work.Most of us ended up working for AT@T wireless at one point or the other.At the time that I left though I was happy to be joining a new company.The year and the half that I spent with Sprint Pcs turned out to be so much fun in terms of what I did on the job and how much fun I was having out of work with all the money that Sprint Pcs was paying me.
The incidents
The first one involved me and co-worker Danny Chou.The district manager had set a budget for both of us to sell 35 cellphones during our initial month of hire.This seemed like a lot for a new hire but as they would find out Danny and I had sold cellphones in our prior companies and we just destroyed the target.We ended up selling about 60 cellphone each and the accelerated that the company had in place was going to give us paychecks of about 6000k for our first month of work.The District manager came and said that because we were both new employees the accelerator did not apply to us.Our paychecks were cut down to the 3000k range.We were both bitter about the whole affair but there was nothing that we could do about it.
The second one occurred during the period that we were migrating customers from the GSM to the TDMA system.A couple,male and female worked into the store and after some discussion with them,I convinced them to switch to the new system.A gave them two telephones for free.I believe that they were the qualcomm dual band telephones.The next day they showed up in the store and complained to my store manager that they were somehow misled into making the buying decision.The matter did not end there.A report was made to the district manager at the time,a guy that I can only name as Charles.Somehow he discussed with my store manager and they came to the conclusion that both phones that I sold should be returned.Also they said that I should write a letter explaining what really happen.That was not the end of the matter.They wanted the letter to include an apology to the couple.When my store manager was explaining this to me I thought that he was joking.A letter of apology to customers for selling them cellphones.That is what we are paid to do.I did write a letter but I told my store manager that I letter of apology was out of the question.I knew that I did not do anything wrong, so I was not afraid of any consequences.That is how the matter ended.
The next incident took place also during the period of migration.This one did not involve me but it did involve a co-worker who latter came on board.Name was Jeff and he ended up going out with a customers daughter who was real young.The girl was hired I believe as part of the extra staff that we needed during the period of conversion.Jeff did not see anything wrong in what he did and at the time the rest of us just looked at it as a minor distraction by the young man.I do not think that the matter got to the high level management of the company because Jeff was never reprimanded for his deed.The fun part was that he had a beautiful fiance at the time and they did end up getting married.I did get to meet the young lady after the incident in the Columbia shopping center after the incident and she seemed quite fine.
The other incident occurred at the job site but the origin of everything took place out of work.What happened is I was heading to work and while on I-95,I got a call from my manager saying that I should stay home and not show up for work.That sounded real strange so I just continued heading to work.I reached the parking lot,parked my car and just before I got into the entrance of the store I was stopped by two men,one of them flashed an official police batch and motioned me into a car.They said that they are just being nice and did not want to create a scene.I followed their instructions and accompanied them into their car and they proceeded to lay some handcuffs on me.We drove to one of the police stations in Columbia where I got the chance to talked to one of the officers who started given me some information.I would later on be transferred to the police station in Rockville during a Friday and would spend the weekend lock-up before I could talk to the people in Rockville Civil court.The tough part was spending time in jail.It is not pleasant at all and you really get to value your liberty.The cause of the problem is that I have been issued a traffic violation ticket about two years earlier and in the course of moving from one apartment to another I did not get a court notice to appear before a judge.A bench warrant was thus issued for my arrest and somehow they located me at the Columbia store.The whole incident was an embarrassment because all my co-workers knew about it and some high level management.I do not think that my relationship with my store manager was the same after this incident.When I ended up leaving the company this incident, I would say was one of the reasons for my looking for a new work environment.
Some of the characters.
In each company that you work at there has to be some characters and Jeff was definitely one of them.The guy was in his early thirties but still trap in a youthful mentality.His love affair with cars was just amazing.He got hired from Circuit city where he was a sales manager and he came to the company with his red flashy car.It was a sports car with the doors removed so that you needed a remote control to get into the vehicle.At one time he was trying to sell the car and I believed he ended up test driving during a period of about a month close to 12 different cars before he settled on one.Then there was Jessie.Jessie worked in the customer service section of the company and she was a good story teller.She was married at the time to a pastor and she had four boys that she talked about all the time.
There was Danny Chou.Danny Chou was around 18 years old when he got hired and he had a habit of recking his automobiles.You had to get into a car with this guy to see how he drives around I-95.Danny would end up quitting before the year was over and returned to South Korea shortly after.That is the story that we got from the sisters who usually came into the store.Danny was fun though if you needed to get good food.He knew where all the good restaurants were around the Columbia,Maryland area and during launch break all you had to do is grap him and he was willing to go.
There was a guy called Dave that transferred from the store in Laurel.Dave could sell very well and had been with the company since its inception as Sprint Spectrum.I had a minor argument with him the first time that he step foot on the sales floor.He was trying to seize one of my customers right in-front of me.We got into a shouting match and I believe that was the first time that I ever got into a shouting match with one of my co-workers.Dave though was noted for something else.Hitting on female customers.Originally from one of the Islands,he would sell you a telephone,then on hit on you.He would hit on all races of women.African-American,White,mixed,you name it.Some of the women were already in relationship and a few of them let him know about it.The complains started coming in,gradually at first and escalated latter on to the point that the company gave him the option to resign which he accepted.
A typical week during my time at Sprint Pcs
A typical week for me would include showing up for work during days that I was scheduled to work.We had a morning shift and a night shift and the days that I was schedule to work during the morning shift I would try and get in some exercise after work.The exercise consist of playing pick-up soccer.After playing I would come home, take a shower and I would just be full of energy.Then it would be time to get cruise in town for some fun.I did meet somebody that we had a relationship for a while and we used to meet at least once week.The periods that my energy level was real high I would add in a Wednesdays meeting and this is probably the most fun that I have ever had in a relationship period.I used to go to the nightclub while working for Sprint Pcs.The club was the old DC live that was located on 9th street in NW Washington DC.The club life was okay especially after we had received those big bonus paychecks.The club life though included just once a week.The work itself in the store consisted of selling phones and services to customer and I knew how to do this.We sold a lot of cellphones and services.There were times though that you just had a bad day and things moved pretty slow.Or at times is just seems as if nobody wants to buy a cellphone.There were days like that and what you had to do is just stay we stick in there with the tough times and the day would be over before you notice it.
Some other benefits.
The company did give a sky-box ticket at one time to the Assistant sales manager who was going to take her daughter to watch the Baltimore Ravens play the Titans from Tennessee on a regular season game.She came in on a Sunday and decided to give up the ticket.I opted for it and called up a female friend of mine and we headed to downtown Baltimore.The Sky-box area is quite fun.There is everything available for you.As much shrimps as you can eat.All type of drinks and various kinds of foodstuff.You get to see the game from the best part of the stadium.
We got free breakfast each time that there was a staff meeting on early Saturday.We would just assembly in one of the restaurants around the area and hold the meeting right there while we eat.There were gift certificates that the company distributed to us for meeting certain sales targets.The certificates range from about 25 dollars to 50 dollars.There were usually distributed during the sales staff meetings.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
