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Cellphones Leapfrog Poor Infrastructure in Mali
Hugh Pickens writes "CBC News has up an article by Peace Corps volunteer Heidi Vogt, a woman who served in the small village of Gono in Mali five years ago and remembers letters dictated and hand-carried by donkey cart or bicycle to the next town. Vogt recently returned to see the changes that cellphone communications have made in a village that still doesn't have electricity or decent drinking water. 'Gono's elders say the phones can keep them in touch with their village diaspora,' writes Vogt. 'Villagers depend on far-off relatives to send money in time of crisis — if someone is sick, if a house has caught fire, if there's been too little or too much rain and the harvest is poor. There's a new sense of connection to a larger world. In a village where most people can't read or write, they can now communicate directly with far-off relatives.'"
with out electricity it is hard to keep your phones battery from running out.
Sweet. Now that they've got communication, lets get some health infrastructure and good food/water going over there. The United States of America is the richest country on the god-damned planet, there's gotta be more we can do to positively contribute to the third world. I suggest that we immediately stop toppling governments. The US political system seems to do a lot of that, and not much good ever seems to happen. Unless you like it when nuns die, in which case, more power to ya.
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Nice article. Positives and negatives, with the mum worried by her sons who do not call.
The effect of cell phones is to allow a village to remain much the same village, despite the children dispersing. Over time, the kids will marry away, but the blow gets softened, and the children are stabilized by contact with home.
So it is a good thing over all. The interesting bit is: who pays for the village phones. Just the children. When you think that this is a force for stability, and how cheap phones are compared to machine guns, it is a pity that some military dollars didn't go into these phones.
but that's only a small start to our plan for world domination!
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
They could use something like this: http://www.thetravelinsider.info/roadwarriorcontent/sidewinder.htm. It would probably work for their purposes.
I suppose a small crank generator could be supplied to give short phone calls.
Wouldn't take much of a solar panel to keep a cell phone alive either.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
No it's not.
The AACS key is NOT 0xF606EEFD628B1CA427BEA93A9CA9773F
From the article they charge them by connecting them to their car's battery.
"I don't necessarily agree with everything I say." - Marshall McLuhan
Ok, if you are going to be the first person to post "what do they need cellphones/computers/internet for, give them food instead" type of post in this thread, I have something to say to you. You are an idiot. Please try to understand that you are an idiot and shouldn't be posting your idiotic opinions on slashdot or anywhere else. Instead, try to improve yourself somehow, take some classes or whatever. It won't help, but at least it will keep you busy.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
"what do they need cellphones/computers/internet for, give them food instead"
It is obvious that in the major insurgancies in the region are going to keep blowing up the infrastructure as their power and territory waxes and wanes vs govt troop deployments so perhaps in this case, it may be appropriate to say this. Although previous slashdotters (read techno-centric people) would argue otherwise, the main factions of the Mba'Lo region do not want any of this, they simply want control and they are willing to starve people out of the region. When you are dying for a piece of bread, yeah it's great that you can call Taroosha, the nearest regional capital, but they cannot get it to you in any case.
I hate to be a first-world asshole, but why would be happy that a third world village is dependent upon its diaspora? Why is this an acceptable state of affairs? Doesn't it bother anyone that these means of communication aren't really sparking commerce?
Instead of sending them food, cellphones, water, or weapons, why not send them some capitalism? Microloans, an active press to fight corruption, and education in systems of law and governance?
Decades of assistance to the third world, and all manner of socialist leaders ready to aid and reform have done little except generate more poverty. Perhaps, instead of giving to the third world, we should start taking; in the form of purchasing agricultural goods, in ecotourism, and other friendly means to transfer money to these areas while simultaneously encouraging (and rewarding!!) hardwork?
It is very, very difficult to motivate yourself to do anything, and create anything, particularly in terrible conditions, without payoff. I think the current state of the third world proves this.
It is difficult for me to watch people prescribe aid, because foreign aid tends to be useless, and siphoned off into corruption. It would be far better to encourage a vibrant economy, both here (by ending 1st world agricultural subsidies), and abroad (by buying good and products from "known good" third world sources).
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
RTFA: "Handsets charge off car batteries in mud huts."
Horns are really just a broken halo.
The Nazi's would have been a lot less whiny than you guys.
I'm surprised they can get the range they are getting from the cell tower they're using.
RTFA: "Everyone in Gono knows the spots where you can get a clear signal - there's a good place to stand by the well on the northern edge of the village, or a few people have sticks propped up on their roofs from which they hang phones. The best reception is up in the cliff, where a few dozen people live in rock huts."
Horns are really just a broken halo.
Dude, I DID read the article. No thanks to you for the asinine and flippant accusation suggesting otherwise.
The article seems to suggest that the cell tower was 16 miles away. I'm just saying that's pretty impressive range.
Not as impressive if you consider that there is little to no spectral interference either.
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I was a Peace Corps Volunteer in a rural part of Tanzania from 1999-2002 and I went back to visit this last summer. When I arrived in 1999 there was one cell network in the country. It was in the (then) capital and most populous city of 2 million people, it had a capacity of 50,000 and was maxed out. A couple of competing companies starting setting up towers and by the time I left they had covered the major cities and arteries of the entire country. When I went back this last July the companies had moved out into the villages and most people in the country had local cell coverage. The area where I had lived was very hilly and somewhat remote so I thought that they would never get coverage out there but they had it.
You don't buy a plan like in the US, you buy a phone ($30 for a cheap model) and then you buy minutes (leading to some of the shortest phone conversations I have ever heard). People who live in areas without electricity find ways to charge them. Someone might buy a generator and set up a side business charging phones. Some people have to bike hours to the nearest town with electricity.
The difference in how people communicate was astounding. Kids away studying could keep in contact with their families back in the villages. Kids who had met in school but lived in different places kept in touch (I reunited a number of my former students by passing cell phone numbers around). Farmers could keep in touch with people in the markets. It was an amazing change.
but I lived in an African Village with no running water or electricity (90% of the time ) for 2 years. (Raise your hands RPCVs)
I had 3 (count them, one two THREE!) cell phone towers within sight of my house, and I could always hear the diesel generators at night if the winds lulled.
Would I have traded the cell phone for reliable electricity or running water?
HELL NO.
Cell phones improved my life and the life of the other people there tremendously. Electricity is about 1,000,000 times more expensive to cook with than charcoal, and kerosene lamps and candles make plenty of light. Water was scarce, but I had a no-flush pit toilet and an in ground rain-catch cistern for water. I only really used about 60l a week. The real problem was that not enough people had big enough cisterns (20% maybe), and many people had none. Water ran out in places at times, people suffered when they couldn't wash or bath as often, but no one ever died of dehydration for lack of a drink. If 60% of the houses had big cisterns, it would solve that problem.
Life without electricity and running water can be just fine. What is really needed is healthcare.
The hospital didn't have a single actual doctor after the foreign volunteer left. Pretty much everyone who walked in was told they had malaria and treated for it regardless. People suffered and died frequently from stupid, easily treated things. THAT was -IS- a tragedy.
"Cheeze it!" - Bender
"asinine and flippant accusation" is the slashdot way, man! :)
Horns are really just a broken halo.
OK, it's not that big of a deal.
no electricity?
how do they charge the battery?
Why not solve both problems at once and send them bananaphones? I mean, the bananaphone is just perfect fot those regions. It's the best, beats the rest... Cellular, modular, interactive-odular - you name it, it is it. It'd take some financial strain off them, as well, because they won't need quarters, won't need dimes to call a friend of them. If the people in those regions had bananaphones, they'd call for pizza, they'd call their cat; they'd call the White House, have a chat. It would be commonplace to even see them place calls around the world, asking the operator to give them Beijing-jing-jing-jing.
I really see the bananaphone as the only situation where they can have their phone and eat it too.
USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
Information is only half the solution. Microloans are the other half.
"They didn't want aid; they didn't want "education". They wanted to know why we refused to buy their products, even though their products were produced more cheaply than ours."
Hey! It worked for China and India. Why not them? Anything else people feel we should outsource in the name of helping the planet?
Has anyone here ever used a crank generator?
I have a tourch that is crank powered and it dosent hold a good charge for long, the three leds start fading as soon as you stop cranking so you need the be cranking while using it inorder to get good light and considering how cheap it is to use batteries in an led tourch your better off just buying the batteries.
Even one of those single led tourches people have on keyrings would be better suited to most jobs, I just keep my tourch in the car for when all else fails.
~Dan
An SQL query goes to a bar, walks up to a table and asks, "Mind if I join you?"
How to persuade the illiterate that it's worth while putting in the effort to learn how to read and write is another, and very difficult question to answer. Even the so-called first-world nations have yet to find the answer.
Certainly the have the sun there. Or is that not a major interferer with cell signals?
Take off every 'sig' !!
Two, three competing cell phone formats? Huge areas of the country which are entirely cut off from cell service. No, lets get our communications up to at least third world standards before we start taking on the third world's water and healthcare problems. Hell, let's get a grip on our own healthcare, too, while we're at it.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
In some of these villages a cellphone hosted by a local is the equivalent of an ATM. sibling in the city can pick up a long distance cell card call the local 'cell guy' and give him the code for more minutes. 'cell guy' in turn provides cash or material goods for the family of the caller after taking his fee. Just being able to send some income back to the village from a remote employment opportunity without traveling is a major boon indeed. Just another example of technology being used in ways that weren't exactly planned for.
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