The cell phone companies have some kind of strangle hold on Uganda. There are more advertisements for MTN, Zain and Orange than just about every other product combined. MTN and Zain have painted peoples houses yellow and pink, respectively, for additional advertising space. Their houses! Pink! With a huge MTN/Zain logo!
I'm pretty confident that the pervasiveness of the telecom industry has had an effect on the usage of cell phones. I can recount at least five different instances where a customer service representative has answered his/her phone while helping me or a team member. When Steve and I tried to buy an internet modem, the woman answered her phone at least three different times. She left her desk each time! Steve and I just waited for her to finish and come back. When we were at the Entebbe Wildlife Park, our personal tour guide answered his phone for a five minute call while we were talking about hyenas. He was talking to us about hyenas, stopped to answer his phone, talked for five minutes and came back. By that time we had moved on to other animals
Ironically, the one place where most people are good about not answering their cell phone is while they're driving. It requires one's full attention to navigate the insane traffic "guidelines" and general driving conditions that talking on one's phone while driving would surely result in an accident. Ever since I got an iPhone, I've texted or checked email at social events/etc while receiving sour looks from others...but the etiquette here blows that away.
But customs and etiquette rules are cultural (obviously). So you just accept it and move on.
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