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.'"

Comments

Good start.

[The Anarchist Avenge]

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.