Yay-hoo the Internet!

I was around the age of seven when I first used the internet. Growing up in Ghana, not many people had access to technology not to talk of even having access to the internet. The people who had computers in their homes were people who came from very rich homes. But lucky for me, my older brother had just opened a café. In Ghana, a café is a shop with computers where people who have no internet can have access to the internet by paying a fine or mulct. My brother said he would help me create a yahoo account so I could email my friends. Right after school one day, I rushed to his shop. I could not believe there was this magical tool called the internet that would help me contact people without having to use a phone. The whole idea blew my mind and I was yet to test this new devise. When I got to his shop, he turned the computer on and then typed in the words “yahoo” in a rectangular Box-what I now know as a search engine. When he clicked the enter button on the keyboard, a long list of links appeared and then he clicked the very first link. The link led us to the official page of yahoo log in. After creating it, I emailed my brother for the first time and he replied in the twinkle of an eye. I realized there was a place where I could also put my picture. “Would anyone who has my account see my photo?” I asked my brother. “Yes they will Afia,” he replied. Afia is my family name but that was not the name I used for my yahoo account. I will never forget my first email joycelynopoku383@yahoo.com. Although I have forgotten the password and might never log back in ever again, Yahoo will always stay in my hurt. Who am I kidding? I have found a new love which is G-mail. Yahoo is for old people. Back then, yahoo was the new vibe but now no one even knows what that is. I asked my nephew if he knows what yahoo is, and he asked “who is she?” My point exactly! But from that day onwards any email I created had 383@whatever.com in it. I was very surprised by this new mystical devise called the internet. I would have loved to use my yahoo account more often but sadly, no one else my age had a computer at home not to even talk of having access to the internet. Unfortunately, I could email no one else but my brother. The good thing is that from that day, I believed that anything was possible. I would not know if the internet has changed from back then till now because I did not get the chance to explore the internet but only accessed Yahoo. I was probably the only person among my friends that had access to the internet and that felt special.