Write about your first computer.
Okay, before you raise an eyebrow, let me explain. My first computer was a Wang. Yes, that Wang. Even in Nairobi, the name raised a few giggles, trust me. But jokes aside, this machine was my portal to the digital world, a rare and wondrous thing in Kenya back then. For that, I’ll always be grateful to my somewhat awkwardly named first love.
Imagine this: it’s the early 90s, I’m rocking some seriously intricate braids (the kind that took hours to perfect), and the air is filled with the sounds of Kalamashaka and Les Wanyika. Life in Nairobi was vibrant, but it was about to get a whole lot more interesting thanks to this beige behemoth of a machine with a monitor that only displayed green text on a black background. Forget your fancy graphics, this was digital safari, raw and exciting.
Now, computers weren’t exactly common in Kenya back then. Having one felt like owning a spaceship! I wasn’t a tech genius, more like a curious explorer venturing into uncharted territory. Something about the Wang’s mysterious blinking cursor and the rhythmic clickety-clack of the keyboard drew me in.
My first mission? Making it play music! Forget coding or any of that complicated stuff, I wanted to hear this thing sing. And sing it did, in a charmingly primitive, 8-bit kind of way. I spent hours painstakingly inputting code, just to hear a tinny rendition of “Malaika” or some other Kenyan classic. It was magical!
Eventually, I graduated to more “serious” pursuits, like learning BASIC. Suddenly, I was a programmer, creating simple games, writing programs to solve math problems (okay, maybe I could have solved them without the computer, but it was way cooler with it), and even attempting some basic animation. The possibilities seemed endless, and my imagination soared.
Looking back, that old Wang was more than just a computer. It was a window to a whole new world, a world of creativity and opportunity that few in Kenya had access to at the time. It ignited a passion that continues to shape my life. And let’s be honest, how many people can say their first love was a Wang that played “Jambo Bwana”? Now that’s a story to tell!
