Red Light Lessons Before Christmas

byJohnMaluth

457 followers

2 days ago

Yesterday, Monday 22 December 2025, a child climbed the wall and pulled down my Wi-Fi wire. Not gently. Not carefully. He pulled it like he was harvesting fruit. The wire snapped, and my router spent the whole night blinking that stubborn red LOS light. It looked like the internet was angry with me personally.

I tried to do the normal, civilized thing. I called the Wi-Fi company. No one picked. I texted. No reply. I called again. Still nothing. At that point I realized something: sometimes the problem is not the wire. Sometimes the problem is that the humans behind the wire have disappeared.

At the same time, my M-Pesa had been refusing to work for about five days. Which meant I could not even buy airtime the easy way. So I found myself doing something I had not done for years: buying scratch cards from a shop. I scratched that card like it was a lottery ticket. If I had a camera on me, you would have seen a grown man celebrating airtime like it was a promotion.

Yesterday evening, I tried to fix the M-Pesa issue at the Safaricom Customer Care centre next to Naivas Supermarket in Saika. They told me they could not help with a passport-holder account there because they did not have access. They said I needed to go to Buruburu branch or town.

So this morning, Tuesday 23 December 2025, I took a bus to Nairobi town. Then I heard the most confusing sentence of the week: “Your passport has expired.”

Expired? My passport is about five months old.

So what really “expired” was not my passport. It was either the system’s memory, or someone did not update my details, or someone did not approve the update, or the system simply refused to obey. I do not know the exact reason. I only know the result: the system believed something untrue, and my life had to pause for it.

After about an hour of waiting, someone worked on it. I tested it by buying airtime, and she told me it was okay. I want to believe her. But you know these systems. Sometimes the staff says “it’s okay,” while the system still says, “Visit the nearest centre for activation.” So I will celebrate fully when the message stops arguing with me.

Now it says, "Waiting for approval" and that's promising. But will they approve it on the 24th of December or after Christmas? Will they even work tomorrow?

Now back to the Wi-Fi. The story continued today. A few minutes before 2:00 pm, I called the Wi-Fi company again. They said they would check the wire. I came home and waited. I stayed. I texted. No reply. I called again. The wire looks fixed, but the red LOS light is still blinking, so I thought maybe it was a different issue. They told me the wire is not fixed yet, but they will work on it.

It is now 6:15 pm. No signs anyone is coming. Red light still blinking. No Wi-Fi.

So I am on mobile data bundles. And if you have ever tried to watch Wealthy Affiliate training on bundles, you know what happens. You click play, the video starts, and your data disappears like sugar in tea. WA training is solid, but my bundles are not wealthy at all. They are humble. They are on survival mode.

Here is where I could complain for ten pages. But I also have to be honest with you. Even with this frustration, life here is still better than what many of us know back home.

In South Sudan, in many places, there is no Wi-Fi company to call on 23 December. There is no technician who might come. There are no service centres still working in the season. Talk about Malakal? Do not even think about service centres or Wi-Fi agents. In many areas, we are still close to the way God created us. No modern roads. Little infrastructure. Sometimes even iron sheets are used for fences, and when the rains come, they can fly, injure people badly, and create wounds that become fatal because help is far and slow.

So yes, I am frustrated. But I am also grateful. I have these tools, even when they fail me. At least I can call someone, even if they do not pick. At least I can take a bus to town and find a working office, even if it costs time, money, and patience.

And then there is the December pressure. Phone calls from the two wives asking if I have money for the season. That is culture. A man is expected to carry the whole December package: clothes, shoes, hair, nails, children’s needs, and sometimes support that stretches beyond his own house. Then again in April for the season of the death and resurrection of Christ. And he is expected to carry it with no visible weakness, no emotional cracking, no tired face. Because if he shows strain, people say he is losing his manhood and respect.

So there I am: blinking red light, no Wi-Fi, bundles shrinking, a system that briefly declared my passport “expired,” and Christmas expectations ringing my phone.

Now let me talk to you, my Wealthy Affiliate friends.

Some of you reading this have stable internet. Your card works. Your mobile money works. Your service centres function. You can watch training without calculating data like you are counting grains of rice. You can publish, optimize, and test things without first fighting to simply get connected.

Please do not take that life for granted.

Gratitude is not just a nice feeling. It is a serious advantage. When you recognize what is working in your life, you stop wasting your energy on constant complaint. You focus. You build. You post. You improve. You grow.

And if your situation is hard right now, like mine today, here is the encouragement. Hardship does not cancel progress. It trains it.

If the Wi-Fi fails, write offline. If the bundles are small, plan your tasks, pause Windows Updates for 1 week, download what you can when you have access, and use your time carefully. If systems delay you, keep moving. You may not control the red light on the router, but you can control the light in your mind.

That one should stay on, even when the internet is off.