[mikorym]

Was there a "computing hotspot" where you were at the time? I think with all the school issues (and university issues) in South Africa it would be cool to have sort of (physical) computing libraries with Raspberry Pis or something like that–a sort of enabling environment where independent kids would at least have the resources necessary to build an eventual career for themselves (perhaps unwittingly at first).

[antonvs]

Just a nit, (the Kingdom of) Lesotho is a separate country from South Africa, although it's landlocked by South Africa.

[mikorym]

I am South African so yes, I don't have any imperial ambitions in that regard. But having said that, Lesotho is rather dependant on South Africa (as OP hints). My question was really whether he was an outlier or whether his friends or immediate environment had a lot of (aspiring) coders.

In Southern Africa in general there was probably < 5% internet penetration back then.