Namibian Cell Phones

My post about the phone numbers brings up something that amazed me this time in Africa- the popularity of cell phones! Imagine you have lived somewhere where you were unable to have a telephone and then all of a sudden in comes this miraculous thing called cellular phones. My experience is that Africans have adopted cell phones whole heartedly. I am a tried and true anti-cell phone person and seeing the invasion of this technology saddens me. Not that I don't think people should be able to be in contact with others but I hate that we all have seemed to have lost a sense of being present. I hate that people don't talk to each other anymore in line, or talk with their check out person- why bother when you can call up anyone else you know and talk to them? About anything? As a dental hygienist, I have had patients interrupt my work to take a call. One woman actually motioned for me to continue while she chatted. Not likely! What has this got to do with Namibia? Well it is the same if not worse there. People take phone calls during meetings or text while in the middle of conversations there. It made me crazy. But that said one of the things that amused me was how the church was the one place that many people had access to electricity to charge up their phones and so you would see them plugged in to all the outlets possible during worship. Then when one phone was charged they would remove it and place another in the plug. I wanted to take some shots of it at one church but we left early and I did not get a chance. Here is the one picture I got with the phones in it.