A while back I bought 10 stamps, each costing 50 Kwacha, in a post office in Kitwe. Finding the stamps took no time, but then the clerk had to wait in line to use the only calculator in the building in order to calculate that I owed him 500 Kwacha (to be fair to the clerk, the policy of the post office was that they had to use the calculator for every transaction). This will be a familiar story to anyone who has tried to conduct business with a government department in Africa. The good news now is that almost every employee has a cellphone which has a built in calculator. Above is the gas attendant who filled up my bike and the two other vehicles I was traveling with. As each vehicle went through she tallied up how much we owed her using the cellphone. This was common practice both in service stations and the other shops we visited. Ironically, I saw some calculators for sale which are made to look like cellphones.

 

I guess the lesson here is that the calculator function may be irrelevant to most users in the developed world, but is critical for a user who can only afford to purchase one gadget. The same is true for other features of the phone, especially the camera - this is the only way that a lot of people will be able to take pictures. When you think of the photo management software on most phones, this is kind of depressing.