The Development Conflict

I have often thought that Madagascar may not be quite ready for the development coming its way. Parts of the country are certainly more progressive than others and I easily forget that there are many educated, hard-working Malagasy people outside of ambanivolo (a.k.a. the bush). Still, there is a sharp contrast between the technology of the developed world and the village life where people have nothing but a grass huts, a lot of livestock, and some fields of rice and corn. Nothing drives this point home for me more clearly than the development of cell service in my village. Yes, cell phones are blowing up all over the world—especially in developing countries that didn’t have any communication infrastructure before cell phones. It is an amazing opportunity for these countries and my neighbors are absolutely thrilled that for the first time they can call loved ones that are living in other villages, cities, or even other countries. We can call about materials in other towns without having to make the day-long journey there first. It is fantastic! Unless, of course, you are the only person that can read, the only person that knows how to operate a cell phone, and thus become the “house of FAQ about cell phones”. Cell-service came to my village about 3 months ago and the first 2 months were my own private hell of cell technology. Why? Here are the top 3 reasons:

1) People did not know how to use phones so I had to teach them—no problem! Except that they can’t read so they couldn’t even figure out who was in their contacts list for the first 3 weeks and they can not follow any of the self-explanatory instructions on the phone. This meant …
2) People came by my house several times per day to ask the same questions over and over. Specifically they hate when any icons show up at the top of the phone screen. So every time they missed a call or got a message I would have to show them how to remove it… of course they can’t read any messages so they didn’t care and just wanted it all to go away. Unfortunately, this meant opening the message which was a series of 8-10 pushes of buttons to memorize. Not easy.
3) Despite being unable to read and remove messages and set alarms (that was another big task of mine), my neighbors somehow learned how to scroll through their ringtones. All day I would hear various ringtones going off—chimes of misery in such a quiet and serene place!

I must say my patience was tested during that time. I tried to empathize and think about how exciting and frustrating it is for them. They would tell me how hard it is and they were so impressed that I knew the secrets of the phones. I am happy to say that I have not had any people come by my house in the past few weeks. My neighbors tell me they are “efa mahay” (already smart) phones now. So, perhaps despite the growing pains and major frustrations of development, Madagascar will learn to develop.
-Jules