Password-22

Here’s the “I clearly live in Africa” story for the day.

I need to call one of our other offices, which I do frequently. The way the phone systems are set up here (pretty much for all Tanzanian offices) is a little different than in the states due to the lack of physical phone lines from the phone company. So the idea of a “direct line” into or out of someone’s office is non-existent. So in order to make calls here you have to dial the receptionist, who in turns dials out and then your phone rings a short time later and your call has been connected. At least, that’s how it worked yesterday.

But today is a different story. Today you need a password to dial out. Now this isn’t an individual password (it isn’t that we each have a code so they can track individual calls), this is a password for the entire building. And no one knows what the password is. Therefore no one can dial out.

How on earth could we have a password that no one knows? Very good question.

Truth be told, there is someone who knows the password. But in classic Catch-22 style, they aren’t in this building. So in order to get the password we need to dial out and in order to dial out we need the password.

As many of you know, I have the world’s greatest cell phone here in Tanzania. So I could just take initiative and call this person on the phone and get the password. You would think! But alas, no one seems to have the number...