Beautiful story of freedom after oppression and Communism, in Africa..

http://dailycapitalist.com/2011/09/19/the-maasai-tracker/#more-13951

Beautiful story of freedom after oppression and Communism, in Africa... 

 

 The Maasai Tracker

By Jeff Harding, on September 19th, 2011

File this article under capitalism.
I came across this Gallup survey of mobile phone use in sub-Saharan Africa which was rather enlightening:

Fifty-seven percent of the adult population — or more than an estimated 151 million people — have mobile phones across the 17 countries Gallup surveyed in sub-Saharan Africa in 2010. The percentage of adults with mobile phones ranges from a high of 84% in South Africa to a low of 16% in Central African Republic, signaling the potential for tremendous growth in the industry on the sub-continent.
Mobile telephone subscriptions have grown faster in Africa than in any other region in the world since 2003, according to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development. Mobile phone adoption rates have soared in countries such as South Africa, where Gallup surveys show more than 8 in 10 adults now say they personally have mobile phones. But penetration still remains relatively low in several countries where adoption rates have been more sluggish, including Burkina Faso (19%), Niger (18%), and the Central African Republic (16%).
The average mobile phone owner in the 17 sub-Saharan countries is more likely to be male (62%) than female (52%) and older than 18. [52% of women have mobile phones, which is impressive in cultures dominated by males.]

I have been to Africa twice, both times on safari in Kenya and Tanzania. The first time I was there, in 1999, there were no phones in the bush except radio or sat phones in the camps where we stayed.
Understand that you are out in the middle of nowhere, which in our case was usually Maasai country. You are cared for by men, mostly Maasai, who live in little villages of mud and dung huts in the vicinity and who supplement their income with, for them, good paying cash jobs. Otherwise they herd cattle with sticks and spears. They are “casually” dressed in the classic red tartan togas. They walk through the same lion country game areas back and forth to work every week carrying only spears or sticks. Nice folks and they really appreciate big-tipping Americans who treat them as fellow human beings. I am told tourists from certain other  countries are not so well liked.
I recall one early morning in Ngorogoro Crater talking to a young herder, Ndok, who was 17, dressed traditionally, carrying the usual spear, knife and stick. He had taken his cattle down into the crater at dawn to graze (only the Maasai are allowed to do this since it was originally their territory, and now a national park in Tanzania). Ndok had gone to boarding school and spoke three languages (Maa, Swahili, and English). Smart kid, already had some cattle, but other than that, he had nowhere to go. Tanzanian President For Life, socialist Joseph Nyerere, who was fond of five-year plans and Chinese advisers, had died just before we had arrived. I recall we were obligated to hear from one of our hotel’s employees all about the wonderful things accomplished by Mr. Nyerere and did we know that he was one of the most admired men in the world?
Their economy was a wreck, and on top of the socialism and state-run industries, there was a kleptocracy mostly based on tribal alliances. The roads were terrible and nothing had been built since the British left in 1961. There was a tourism industry run by foreigners but it was a who-you-know business. Also, the Maasai were not liked because they arrived relatively late (they are Nilotic, not Bantu), moving their herds down a couple hundred years ago from points way north.

Now fast forward to my next trip in 2006, same basic areas. The change was amazing. Cell phone towers were everywhere in the bush, so that everyone who wanted a cell phone could get one. Capital flooded in to build the infrastructure that just bypassed land lines. Here is a big part of that story:

Sudanese billionaire Mo Ibrahim, whose former company, Celtel, brought the cell-phone boom to Africa, where the number of cell phones “has grown from fewer than four million in 1998 [mostly South Africa] to more than four hundred million today [2011] — almost half the population of the continent.” Despite their expense, inconvenience, and even danger, they’ve proven invaluable in Liberia, a country entirely without landline service, where people need all the tools they can get to face the overwhelming task of rebuilding from nothing. Among their uses, Auletta writes,
The phones have created jobs—presently, the company that Ibrahim started has more than five hundred thousand scratch-card outlets—and infrastructure. Migrant workers who leave home for distant jobs can stay in touch with their families. Businesses can talk to customers and suppliers, and employees in different offices can speak with each other. Farmers now compare prices before selling their produce. The nearest doctors can be located. Mobile banking has been introduced. During elections, people have taken pictures documenting vote fraud or intimidation with their mobile phones and sent text messages about possible improprieties. [This is the case in most of rural Africa.]

 So there I am near Oldupai (as they call it) in the middle of nowhere hanging around waiting for my ride. The only other person there was George, a very traditional Maasai tracker-guide who was waiting for his party of Germans to go trekking. We are chatting away, talking about his family, my family, what I did, what he did, what his worries were (very serious drought right then) and the like. Then in the middle of our chat his phone goes off and he says to me, I swear, “Excuse me Jeff, I have to take this call.” It just blew me away.
It took only 7 seven years to flood Africa with phones.