Article
‘Sawubona! Unjani?” is less snappy than “How r u?” but the text message means the same thing in Zulu. For Southern Africa’s rural populations, SMS is allowing people to communicate like never before. In some isolated parts of KwaZulu-Natal Province in South Africa, the distinctive towers of mobile phone masts are now as much part of the scenery as the rolling green hills and endless blue sky. Cellular networks cover 90 percent of the country, connecting far more people than the scarce land-line system. The numbers are telling. There are about 43 million people living in South Africa and only 4.7 million have access to a fixed-line telephone. Cellphone technology has not only got South Africans talking, it has also got them texting.