A little while ago my roommate and I realized our phone was not ringing. It took us most of the day to notice since we were enjoying the silence. We put a message on the center information board that our phone was not working so if anyone wanted to get in touch with us they needed to send an email.
That afternoon someone showed up and handed us a new phone! What service! We laughed when we plugged in our “new phone”. Our older version was pretty old but this one was probably 5 years newer. Plugging it in I couldn’t help but think how telephones have changed.
In America it is becoming much more common for a family to have a few cell phones and not have a home number. Here in Ukarumpa, a cell phone connection is not always dependable so the land line is the way to go. (although sometimes people could use the information board to summon a family member home for dinner ;)
Growing up we had a phone where you dialed the number and waited for it to spin around before dialing the next number. I always loved that! Of course, we only had to dial four numbers.
When I came to visit in 2009 I was surprised to see the amount of cell phones in this country. When I left in ’03 no one had a cell phone, now it would not be surprising to see someone walking around with one. The culture is changing. Texting is popular even in a third-world country like PNG. Although some people may bath in the river and cook over a fire they are still able to find a place to charge their cell phone.
Times are changing.
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