The Technology of Cell Phones and Computers in Tanzania

The Technology of Cell Phones and Computers in  Tanzania

Northwestern Karaga Region

Just think of what it would have been like to have placed cell phones in the hands of people 100 years ago.  That is almost what it is like here. There is no electricity, no running water, no land lines in this area for anything.  But there are cell phones and some computers in people’s hands.

This is all very hard to get a handle on.  It is incomprehensible to us in the US to understand.  On the coast (Zanzibar and Dar Salaam) they are a lot more technologically savvy.  A few land lines, maybe better phones, computers and internet service.  More towers, access to satellite services are available.

Here everything goes through very few towers.  The cell phones and the computers go through the same towers.  Personal private phones and computers and commercial (banks, and businesses) go through the same few towers. 

The modem we are using Carolee bought and I helped pay for Junes service so I can use it also.  In order to use our computers she has to take the Sims card out of her phone and place it in the modem device.  So if Carolee needs to take her phone to use somewhere the computers can not get on the internet.

Realize also that all the phone and computer waves are going through very few towers so this means that everything is slow, very slow.  Sometimes we can not pull up what we need.  G mail will only partially come up so you see you have new email but you can not get to the messages sent.  Nor can you email back.

I do not think I will ever be able to get use to this in the short time I am here.  Trying and failing to Skype with my son the other night was very disappointing.  It just does not have the connectivity to accomplish this chore.

On the other hand, looking at the big picture I think about all the people here who are able to communicate with their families and that makes me happy.  Many people who teach at this school have wives, husbands and children in other villages’ hours away.  They do not get home to see them for weeks on end, sometimes months.  They now at least are able to take talk or text with them on a regular basis.

These are not smart phones they are using.  In fact they are phones that ten years ago we though were fabulous.  There are very few smart phones here.  They work and that is what counts.  To these people it is a miracle.  I have been amazed when a woman walking along a dirt road with a baby on her back and a pile of stuff on her head pulls out a phone and starts to talk.

How they charge their phones when they have no electricity what puzzling me.  Carolee showed me all these tiny little run down, falling apart, ramshackle structures lining the main streets (or only streets) in the villages we pasted.  They are covered with advertising by the phone companies.  These are places where people with phones go to charge them, for a small fee of course

When one has electricity here it is still quite dicey.  We have gone for a whole day without electricity. When it goes out in the evening it is very black and dark.  The only light are the stars, the moon if it is out, my tiny flash light or my nook, if it is charged.

The towers also declare a time out several times a day.  Think about standing in a line for two hours at a bank and then power goes out or the internet goes out and then everything in the whole area stops.  That is except for the little lean-to shops in the middle of town that have been operating for hundreds of years selling their produce, meats, materials and all.  They do not need electricity. But I am sure that all of them have a cell phone on them.