Connected

As I type there are 6 men on my roof constructing a 50-foot tower to mount two large satellite dishes that will transmit high-speed wireless internet throughout the entirety of Tactic. Though I can barely believe it myself (and won’t completely until blistering fast internet is pulsating through my Mac), it is the truth. This tower is real and really large. Christmas has come about a month late.

To my astonishment and the envy of many volunteers, I have actually had wireless internet in my house since arriving in Tactic. The family that owns my humble abode has its own house directly in front of mine and runs an internet café out of it, from where I receive my signal. Never would I have imagined that in Peace Corps I would have internet in my home. Before arriving in Guatemala, I was hoping just to have internet in my site.

So when Miguel (my “host father”) told me last week that he planned to improve the internet service, I was naturally excited. But I really had no clue as to the magnitude of his project until I saw the gigantic tower on my roof yesterday. Obviously giddy with excitement but trying to contain it, Miguel explained to me how the soon to be attached satellites are going to blanket Tactic, all the way from the outlaying aldea of Tampo to the Nu’Kem store (which is about ¾ of a mile from my house), with wireless internet three times faster than it currently is. I am giddy with excitement now too.

Now Miguel is an intelligent man and perhaps more forward thinking than I am, but I have trouble seeing how this expensive undertaking is going to be profitable. It would be a safe estimate to say that less than half of the people in Tactic even know how to use a computer and the percentage of those that have a computer in their home must be extremely small (I have never been in a house here with a personal computer). But as a life long resident of Tactic, Miguel possibly has a better idea of the potential market than I do, and I am certainly not going to throw any doubts his way.

And besides just my personal self-interest (which is very high…I have visions of eating refried beans and sipping instant coffee at a comedor while reading the newest articles from The Economist), this project is extremely exciting to me because of its novelty and possible transforming impact. Tactic will be the first small rural community in Guatemala and perhaps in the entire developing world to be completely wireless. Knowledge is power so saith Sir Francis Bacon, and there is certainly a lot of knowledge to be gained through the internet (Facebook notwithstanding). I probably won’t get to see the effects during my time here, but I have no doubt that the development of Tactic will be accelerated with Tactiqueños having easy access to such a vast resource of information—information that will be radiating out from the tower on my roof. I just hope I don’t get cancer.