certification

Saturday 9.7.2016

I’m still pretty behind on my writing.  The goal is to catch up by the time we leave Cusco, which is…. Well, chronologically, challenging.

Our last day in Mancora was work-focused.  Molly and I are also applying for places to live in Tampa, so our third roommate (and personal guardian angel) Cameron sent us links to a potential new place and we spent the day in an Internet cafe figuring out how to print and scan things between sporadic bursts of WiFi.

PokemonGo came out in one of the days around our last day in Mancora and the view from outside the States is startling.  The orders of Internet infrastructure separating Tampa and Mancora became very stark very quickly; accessible data coverage allows people to catch monsters in any public space, meet with friends and live in a world where reality is augmented back in Florida.  In Mancora, the vast majority of Peruvians don’t have smart phones and there is no real data coverage.  Internet cafes are abundant to allow users access to a dial-up connection that is often too slow for many data-heavy websites (Facebook being the key one in mind).

To understand the impact of this disparity, I try to imagine Tampa without widespread Internet access.  We have a port, but the shipping industry relies on cutting edge Internet technologies and a dependable Internet infrastructure.   We have restaurants, but without Google Maps or Yelp reviews, I have a hard time believing that many millennial would take the effort to find them.  USF depends on a large and accessible database of academic information to produce research and remain funded, not to mention maintain a thriving student body which uses Facebook to organize campus events almost exclusively.

I would imagine that my age is a limitation in understanding he significance of the Internet on our modern world.  I cannot remember a time where we did not have it and it was not improving.  Walking around Mancora is like walking through history, because the invisible yet humming network of emails, friend requests, and Tinder swipes is not present.

In the lives of everyday Mancorans, I would imagine that this limitation is noticed but not weighed heavily.  Life has always existed without Internet and will not crumble tomorrow because of its absence. Human connection is fruitfully intact despite an over abundance of connectivity, and life certainly feels more free in Mancora than in Tampa.

But imagine one more thought: imagine if you had absolutely no way to observe the social lives of 2.5 billion people.  You cannot use a computer to find the answer to any question in a search bar.  No more instant access to news about your government or the rest of the world.  No more cat videos. And yet, you hear whispers of people in distant lands who walk around with mobile phones and catch little monsters with friends.  Would you want that to come to your home?

Short post today because we didn’t do much.  Enjoy reading this on the Internet!