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this is my cell phone (lifeline). never had i imagined how attached i would become to a such a thing. i resisted for a while in the states, but gave in like almost everyone else after a time. it is admittedly convenient and addicting. even still, i would leave it behind whenever possible and enjoyed the ensuing freedom. but it is amazing how essential it has become to my life now...in africa of all places. communications here are like this: texting is the primary means and keeps all of the volunteers united in an otherwise very isolating situation; outgoing calls are expensive and therefore rare; incoming calls are free, welcomed, and usually received with a great deal of excitment; email is the new snail mail; snail mail is the new christmas.

you may wonder how cell phones work in africa, especially when they can suck so badly at times in the u.s. in fact, i find the network coverage here as good as, if not better than, the coverage i got back home. i was shocked at first, but it began to make sense once i thought about it. of all the infrastructure a profit-seeking company could install in a place like this (water, electricity, roads, sewer), what is faster/easier than building cell towers here and there on top of rocks? there are no connections to be made; it all happens thorugh the air. magical. and once these towers are in place, the cell companies can just kick back and collect our airtime fees. cost < benefit.

and the benefits are quite mutual, i assure you.