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Here's what I first wrote,

"Hotel" = restaurant "Comrade" = fellow broke ass (i.e., not necessarily used only by socialists and commies)

You can pay using Machankura (wallet), from your $12 feature phone.

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Or, if Sorted Wallet has LN support now, then you can install that wallet as a KaiOS app on your $25 Nokia 2720.

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For smartphones, you have options. Blink.sv is the now the most common LN wallet app on the streets.

Translation(s), per AI Chat:

Hotel: In Kenya, the word "hotel" often refers to a small restaurant or an affordable eatery, not necessarily a place to sleep. Locally, "hotel" is commonly used for simple dining places found across both urban and rural areas, especially in lower-income neighborhoods and slums.

Comrade: In the slums and informal settlements of Kenya, especially in places like Mathare, "comrade" can also refer to anyone facing similar economic struggles, those sharing the everyday challenges of life in tough environments. Here, the word suggests a sense of trust, shared experience, and practical loyalty—it signals someone who can be relied upon in difficult times, irrespective of their background or exact affiliation.

Certainly, I could have picked a better example.

But referring to internationally recognized (sovereign) countries, the UK fits.

Keep good notes ... you (too) could even write a book about it!

Africa is not a country.

If you were going to the U.K., wouldn't you say you were headed to the U.K.? Same for Italy, or Finland even?

At first I thought you were being vague for OpSec.

Same for airtime ... in the range of 8% to 10% (from memory based on past spot-checks), versus using the BTC/KES to then buying airtime with KES.

Cheaper if you aren't using guest mode (creating an account only needs e-mail), ... by a percent or two.

Sarafu.network now has a wallet: #1234822

Sarafu was featured in this post: #915122

Joe said Dollars are accepted in addition to the Kenyan Shilling. Maybe hotels that see many foreign guests do take dollars, and certainly some taxi operators do. But essentially no supermarkets (except maybe by where the embassies and diplomat residences are) take dollars, and definitely almost nobody in Kibera would be willing to accept USD for payment.

Well, it was in the title.

But looks like I passed over the "Designed for the African fintech ecosystem" before having typed that.

While the only service supported, today, is Safaricom M-Pesa (which works only in one country), other similar mobile money services with API access could be added -- whether that be in Africa, or wherever else those Mobile Money operators are.

The main competitor, with a relatively tiny market share of the mobile money market, does not charge for in-network transfers (from one Airtel Money customer to another). And they are otherwise mostly less expensive.

Transfers:

Withdrawals:

Most everyone whines about the m-Pesa fees, and LN is just sitting there.

LOL, Africa is not a country.

M-Pesa is a franchise, available to mobile network operators in many countries, but from a quick glance, Rada is (today), only available with Safaricom M-Pesa (and in Kenya, for KSh conversions only).

I think the only friction in using Rada will be in applying for the API key where they scrutinize the application, where if you are honest and say it is a form of a bitcoin or "crypto" exchange, they will decline granting of the credentials. Will be interesting!

Birr means "silver" in the traditional language (Amheric).

From Wikipedia:

That would be about a third of an ounce of pure silver.

You need nearly 2,000 (paper) birr today to obtain as much silver as 1 birr, produced in 1903, had.

CNBC article:

#1060860 https://www.cnbc.com/2025/07/30/superhot-geothermal-energy-could-unearth-power-needed-for-ai-era-.html

"By the end of this decade."