From Mayberry to Metropolis

Lest we think technology moves swiftly in the West, let me tell you about Tabligbo, Togo, a little town that has gone from Mayberry to Metropolis in twelve short years.

When we moved to Tabligbo in 1994, we put in requests for phone service. It took weeks for our requests to be filled. Finally, one of our teammates heard he would be getting his telephone turned on.

"How do you know?" he asked the bearer of the news.

"I saw the men coming down the road with your wire."

Sure enough, each house had to have a wire run from the Post Office (where the phone company was housed), which meant two men (one to work and one to supervise) had to roll the wire down the road and string it pole to pole.

We were the last family to get phone service, being the furthest stretch from the Post Office. In fact, the phone company had to use our truck to get the job done.

But, at last, we had a telephone... of sorts... and we could call anyone we wanted... sort of.

In order to place a call, we dialed the Telephone Operator who sat in a little closet in the back of the Post Office. "I'd like to call this number," we'd say, then hang up. A few minutes later, if we were lucky, the operator would call back to connect us to our party. We learned to place calls when Maglow was working since he actually tried to do his job. Some of the other operators tended to nap or take breaks or just get annoyed that we would have the audacity to actually want to call someone.

We waited impatiently for direct dial. In the meantime, we experiemented with doing email through a Callback computer in the States, through Compuserve in Ivory Coast, and through any other number of methods that all had their disadvantages (especially the $300 phone bills).

Fast forward a few years past direct dial telephones and the trunk line that was finally installed to allow internet in country, past the cell phone service out of Benin and then in Togo, to this week.

We just got word that Tabligbo, Togo has gone wireless! With a little boost from an antenna, our teammates there can have unlimited internet access 24/7... provided they can get electricity.

But that's another story.