>Gobojango was also not the easiest place for me to work. That is because of the complete lack of access to the internet – one thing that knows no inequality because no one there has meaningful access to internet services.
>To us village folks growing up in the 1990s, the internet was an alien concept. And it remains that way for those still living there today.
>Two decades later, pupils still tend to whatever is left of their families’ livestock after school hours and on weekends. Many still have to fetch firewood from the outskirts of the village after school so that they can have enough light to study around the dugout fireplace.
>Apart from electricity and a tarmac road that traverses the village, not much infrastructural development has taken place. My former secondary school, which was built in the early 1990s, is now dilapidated. The lockers, windows and doors are broken; the ceiling sags inwards and, as it does, the fibreglass that is sealed into the roof falls on to the desks; and bats and rats rule the roost, scampering around randomly.
>It is almost inconceivable that any kind of learning takes place in this environment
>Access to the internet is also out of reach for most people. Broadband costs start from $79 per month, in an area where more than half the population is formally unemployed, and where even those with jobs earn less than $5 a day
>In South Africa, where I normally live and work as a legal researcher on human rights issues while I complete a PhD in International Law, access to the internet is also a luxury for most, at about $59 per month.
>As I struggle to do research with limited internet data, my heart cries out for the hundreds of young people in my village where there are no libraries and no computers.
aljazeera.com
