I am told that in 2007, just ten years ago, all the nearby
villages had just one landline phone for everyone to use. The lone phone was in
the community hall in the village that I am now in, and when anyone from a 40
minute walking radius wanted to make a phone call, they had to come use that
one central phone. A year ago when I arrived to my site, everyone had cell
phones- mostly old push button kinds. A few visits from phone company sales
people later, most people now have low end cell phones and/ or tablets. People
can now access data and everyone is interested in what the internet and
technology can offer, although many people think that the internet is basically
Facebook.
This has given people greater access to world news, although
everyone seems to take what they read at face value, without scepticism or
considering the source. I have had MANY conversations recently with people
about how you can’t believe everything that you read on the internet. Anyways,
here is a selection of some related occurrences that have occurred in the past
few months.
- I was waiting in the back of a truck in Saratamata (the provincial center) when a guy came up to ask me if the US and Russia are going to go to war.
- My host dad came over in a rush one morning, saying he wanted to look at the world map hanging on my wall because he heard that there was a war in Syria and he wanted to know if it was true and where Syria is.
- The headmaster came over telling me to get prepared because someone told him that the US and Korea were going to war within 24 hours. (I have also had a lot of conversations lately about how North and South Korea are two different countries.)
- The pastor told me at a fundraiser that he has leadership quotes e-mailed to him and that Trump has good ones.
- An 18 year old girl asked me how to respond to random guys adding her on Facebook and sending photos of themselves to her.
The list goes on and on. It’s amazing how rapidly things
change. Technology seems to change quickly in the US, but it seems expedited
here- the village has skipped straight over household landline phones, Ethernet
cords, and desktop computers, and went straight to smartphones and tablets.
What will it- and the rest of the world- look like in ten more years?
