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[pscocoa]

[cam2502]

I just couldn't live like that. I reckon within 5 minutes I'd be crying like a baby screaming for my mum and probably just die
We really don't appreciate how lucky we are do we.

[Varche]

In some ways though they are more advanced than us. A lot of African countries have a pay by mobile phone system.

I bet it isn't so pleasant when it rains.

Thanks for the photos

[PhilRich]

Lovely shots, takes me back a few years

[Vamps]

Thanks for the pictures...... To me, I can't quite get my head around those photos and Mobile phones, just do not go together, in my mind.....

[pscocoa]

Mobile phones are at present one of best sources for rural communities to get access to markets - they can get an idea of what goods are selling at in various parts of the country as a guide.

Agricultural productivity is shockingly poor - farm sizes are small, crop pest and disease is high, incomes are very low, feeder roads are poor, some impassable during rainy season I.e.now!

Everyone is just existing but their expectations are much different to ours and they farm because they are expected to as the land is handed down. This is slowly changing.

Almost everyone is a trader with roadside stalls lining every main road with seemingly throngs of people hanging around them well into the night. Their sense of communication and family is much different to us.

You have to accept that things are as they are where matters are outside your sphere of possible influence - kids selling goods at roadside and chasing down cars at toll payment points to sell goods makes you think about their lack of education options.

Religion still plays a big part here to give people a sense of purpose.

[aaronjb]

Ah, mobile phones in Africa - I worked on a mobile internet infrastructure project a while back for one of the big telcos (supplying places like Nigeria, D.R. Congo, Zambia, Gabon etc), and as part of that they supplied a list of their 'top 10' accessed websites to be used in benchmarking..

If I recall correctly, number one was Yahoo, number two was the BBC News, and three through ten were porn...

[Rods2]

It makes you realise the gulf between Africa and the poorer European countries. In the Ukraine the local town's Sunday market is crammed with food and goods in comparison. Ukraine is classed as a medium income country where monthly wages are about £200 a month. The capital Kiev and the Eastern heavy industrial cities, like Donetsk, are the richest. The minimum wage is about £75 a month.

Many people who don't work in the Ukraine and live in a village, use their 0.4hectare (1 acre) smallholding to survive and are below the UN official poverty level of $1.50 a day! But, this is generally old people, where the pension is about £15 a month or alcoholics.