Thursday 7 May 2015 00.00 BST
With roads inaccessible, transporting a specially designed mobile phone mast to the remote town of Numbi, high in the the mountains of South Kivu, was an onerous task. Photojournalist Susan Schulman joined a team from an African communications company as they carried the mast’s heavy component parts across 27km of steep, muddy terrain
As part of its rural coverage project, the African mobile communications company Vodacom is working to install a portable, solar-powered mobile phone tower in the remote, isolated community of Numbi, high in the mountains of South Kivu. The specially designed technology will bring mobile reception to the conflict-ridden eastern region of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Here, a map in Vodacom’s office in Goma shows the locations of phone reception points in North Kivu
All photographs by Susan Schulman
The DRC is the size of western Europe, but is severely underdeveloped, with just 2,250km of paved roads throughout the whole country. Many of these are impassable at times, such as this road between Goma and Kalunga. Lack of access to many communities, combined with the absence of phone reception, heightens the risk of violence and conflict
Kalunga is a small town at the base of the mountains. Trucks carrying the heavy equipment for the mobile phone tower have to end their journey here, as it is rainy season and mud makes the dirt tracks impassable. Workers offload the kit, ready to begin the 27km journey on foot along the hill paths to Numbi
Sergeant Jacques Chingmuta and some of his Congolese army colleagues are heading for Numbi by motorbike. Security is an issue on these remote roads. A small Vodacom team who had tried to travel to Numbi the previous week were attacked and robbed.
‘For us, getting reception will be good,’ says Chingmuta. ‘But there are [armed bandits] who don’t want it … as it will help the government chase them away. If there was a way to stop robbers using a walkie-talkie, it would help a lot, but we can’t … When Vodacom was attacked, the [armed] guys changed frequencies so we couldn’t hear’
Finally the convoy arrives at Numbi’s muddy main strip. It is a town in the Haut plateau of South Kivu, in the heart of the mining region
Under an umbrella, a local Vodacom salesman sells credit for the soon-to-be-installed phone service, his voice blaring at ear-splitting volume from some old speakers
After dark, Numbi bursts into life for a few hours, though insecurity makes it dangerous to venture out. Volleys of late-night gunshots often echo around the town
The DRC has vast mineral resources, including tantalum, a key component in electronics manufacturing. Here, a mineral buyer and seller examine tantalum by flashlight
Alexi Mbavu Pay Pay, head of the Numbi community, says: ‘Since 2008 we have been sending requests to communication companies … Connection is so important. As you can see, we are very far away from government so this place has been taken over by armed groups.’ He believes getting mobile reception in Numbi will improve security and save the lives of many of the women who might otherwise have died due to complications in pregnancy and during labour. ‘With reception, you can communicate’
The last pieces of kit, including six solar panels, arrive in Numbi and are carried to the top of the hill in preparation for the installation of the phone tower
The assembly of the 18-metre tower draws a big crowd
A technician works on the final pieces of the tower
A porter bearing a 50kg battery makes the final steps of his journey
The headteacher of the local primary school (not pictured) explains the insecurity that thrives in this isolated place. ‘Many times I have been attacked – many people here have been … If I had had reception, I could have called the police and I believe they would have helped.
‘Getting robbed so often is one of the reasons people here are so poor. But I think once cellphone reception is here, the cases of robbery will be reduced as the bandits will be scared … they won’t know who can inform’
Gasps of amazement ripple through the crowd as the technicians put the finishing touches to the mobile mast.
The solar panels on the tower are specially designed to maximise the capture of light, even when there is no sun, although they cannot collect light when there is heavy cloud cover or rain. The batteries contain a 48-hour back-up of energy, but prolonged days of cloud cover and rain will result in reception outages
The moment has come at last and people are ecstatic – the town has mobile reception. The network jams immediately with the sheer numbers of people trying to get on to it
The newly built phone mast towers over Numbi. The total weight of the kit carried on the 27km journey from Kalunga to Numbi was 2,660kg
No comments:
Post a Comment