{"id":464,"date":"2013-09-10T20:13:19","date_gmt":"2013-09-10T20:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/?p=464"},"modified":"2013-09-10T20:13:19","modified_gmt":"2013-09-10T20:13:19","slug":"from-scribing-letters-to-facebook-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/from-scribing-letters-to-facebook-fast\/","title":{"rendered":"From Scribing Letters to Facebook, Fast"},"content":{"rendered":"

Our school and village had no electricity. When I left in 2007, I kept in touch with people mostly through letters. The school and village still don’t have electricity, but these days I keep in touch with people mostly through Facebook.<\/p>\n

Many of my former students now have cell phones. Some of them live in towns where they have electricity and can charge them in an outlet connected to the grid while some still live in the village and charge the phones with small solar panels or by paying someone who can take it to electricityland. They Facebook on these phones, and some are on the site almost as much as an American teenager.<\/p>\n

The situation blows me away because I was the first to show the students a digital camera back then. I would ask them if they had heard of the Internet and not a single student even knew what it was.<\/p>\n

It’s been such a rapid transition — only six years — to go from the 19th century to the 21st. And they virtually skipped the intermediate technologies of landline telephones, then cell phones used for talking, then personal computers used for email. It was straight from writing on paper and licking a stamp to social networks on the Internet. Talk about bridging a gap. They are now on equal footing with everyone in the richest countries in this respect.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"reddit\"<\/a>\"pinterest\"<\/a>\"linkedin\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>by <\/span>\"feather\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our school and village had no electricity. When I left in 2007, I kept in touch with people mostly through letters. The school and village still don’t have electricity, but these days I keep in touch with people mostly through Facebook. Many of my former students now have cell phones. Some of them live in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8huLi-7u","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":422,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/questions-discuss\/","url_meta":{"origin":464,"position":0},"title":"Questions. Discuss.","author":"Greg Alder","date":"June 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0 Below are a dozen prods. Use them to further consider\u00a0what is in\u00a0The Mountain School.\u00a0Share with\u00a0a friend, a book club, a group of students. 1. If judged through most news stories, we get the impression that Africa is two things: a romantic land of wild animals, and a desperate place\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/questions-discuss\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"The_Mountain_School_Cover_thumbnail 15 percent size","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/The_Mountain_School_Cover_thumbnail-15-percent-size-e1362499365205.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":125,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/about-the-cover\/","url_meta":{"origin":464,"position":1},"title":"About the Cover","author":"Greg Alder","date":"January 20, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I had a photo and a general vision for how I wanted the cover to look, and a graphic designer friend, Julie Rubtchinsky, made it happen. First, about the photo. These are my students. Do they look like students? It was a day of celebration they called\u00a0Letsatsi la Moetlo, or\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"The_Mountain_School_Cover_for_Kindle","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/The_Mountain_School_Cover_for_Kindle-671x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/The_Mountain_School_Cover_for_Kindle-671x1024.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/The_Mountain_School_Cover_for_Kindle-671x1024.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":467,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/facebook-sesotho-style\/","url_meta":{"origin":464,"position":2},"title":"Facebook, Sesotho Style","author":"Greg Alder","date":"October 4, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Mornin guys? Kele hopotse kao fela n cn't wait 2 c some of u s i knw dt we gna mt.\" What? A former student from Lesotho posted this on Facebook the other day, and that\u2019s my usual reaction to any posting from someone in Lesotho: What? Actually, Facebook for\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 3 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 3 comments","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/facebook-sesotho-style\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":683,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/tsoeneng-mountain\/","url_meta":{"origin":464,"position":3},"title":"Ts’oeneng Mountain","author":"Greg Alder","date":"June 13, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"When I arrived in Ts'oeneng I assumed the village got its name from the rock atop its mountain that looked like the profile of a monkey.\u00a0Ts'oene means \"monkey\" in Sesotho. Later, I was told a couple of other origin stories. There used to live troops of monkeys in the caves\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 1 comment","block_context":{"text":"With 1 comment","link":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/tsoeneng-mountain\/#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"Tsoeneng mountain","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Tsoeneng-mountain.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Tsoeneng-mountain.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Tsoeneng-mountain.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Tsoeneng-mountain.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/Tsoeneng-mountain.jpg?fit=1200%2C900&ssl=1&resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":271,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/lesotho-and-the-chinese\/","url_meta":{"origin":464,"position":4},"title":"Lesotho and the Chinese","author":"Greg Alder","date":"February 16, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"In\u00a0The Mountain School\u00a0I told the story of visiting a Chinese-owned shop in a neighboring village called Kolo, where a Mosotho woman got into an argument with the Chinese cashier. Chinese are really the only immigrants in Lesotho and, if I could sum up, I'd say the Basotho grudgingly patronize Chinese\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":550,"url":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/malefa-an-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":464,"position":5},"title":"‘Malefa: an update","author":"Greg Alder","date":"February 13, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Where is she now? My super student is married with a daughter named Pinkie, and she lives in a village just a few miles from Ts'oeneng. In Lesotho, the wife becomes part of the husband's family and therefore usually moves to his family's home village. She recently graduated from the\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":466,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions\/466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregalder.com\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}