Intaneti-“Internet”
I would like to take a moment to say how genuinely impressed I am with the internet here in Namitete. For a rural community, they have some decently fast internet. It’s even better than that in my pretty rural town of Saint Francisville, Louisiana. In fact, there was a point where I wanted to talk to my parents but I couldn’t because their wifi wasn’t working for a week.
The system for internet is genius. It has 4 steps.
- Buy an internet dongle or a wifi router. Inside of the dongle is a sims card that connects to cellular data. If Renata or I had thought to bring a wireless router, we could have connected multiple devices to one sims card. Some dongles and wifi routers come preloaded with internet.
My Airtel dongle plugged into Renata’s computer(see previous post) - Insert the sims card into your cellphone. That’s right, you can buy internet with your cellphone. Anywhere, anytime.
My Malawi Cellphone - “Top off” your sims card with airtime. The company we are using (Airtel) sells airtime at most street vendors. We can find of airtime in Namitete or Namitondo. This is a good system for those living in rural communities. Airtel is not just in Malawi, but all across Africa and India.
The airtime I brought this week, each worth 500 MK or about 1USD. - On your cellphone, buy mobile internet. 4GBs of internet here cost about 6,600 MK, or about $14USD. With work, we go through about a gigabyte per week, so this amount is perfect.
- Put your sims card in your dongle and you have internet!
Inserting sims card into dongle. 
Airtel running on the computer
This system is an example of technology designed specifically for a global setting. The majority of Malawi is rural, so it is important that cellphones and internet work in these areas. SMS is even used in Saint Gabriel’s Pallative Care Center as a means to contact volunteers spread across the hospital’s service hours (that’s a good 60 km in any direction).
I might tell my town to take note.