Ethiopia has the lowest number of cell phone subscribers in Africa.

The country where my husband is has the lowest number of internet subscribers. While what is wrong with Liberia might be easily explained by years of war that decimated the infrastructure, Ethiopia (besides a few skirmishes with Eritrea) has not seen the conflict on the scale of say, Sierra Leone. No, the situation in Abyssinia comes down to three letters: ETC. Ethiopia Telecom will not allow competition--all of the telecommunications systems go through the government. This is why it took four months for my employer to take pity on me and give me the "consultant" SIM card (the whole time I was in country there were none available and ETC refused to issue new ones) and why, as I write now, I am on a slow dial-up.

The government shut down Skype, blogspot.com, and streaming video seems at least three decades away.

Last week the internet, cell phones and land lines shut down for the whole day. My Ethiopian colleagues thought Somalia had invaded. After living in Afghanistan, I believed them.

So, as you all know, Somalia did not invade. However, after this post I this blog might be shut down.