#2112: RE: #2093: Are There Any ATM's? Davis replies (fwd)

[Robert Corbett <bcorbett@netcom.com>]

From: Karen Davis <kdavis@marygrove.edu>

I, too, find it amusing what people feel they must have in another nation.
Guerin Montilus, our excellent Haitian professor who guides student work in
Benin, is fond of reminding the students that they SAID they wanted to find
out what Africa is like--this is what it is like!  That is the joy of
travel--to discover all the marvelous ways people have created and adapted
to communicate, to travel, to eat, etc. After all, if we had a Haitian
subway, where would the tap-taps be? And how would you learn to rely on your
neighbors if you didn't have to use their telephone? And how can one learn
about the local finance systems if one merely deals with an ATM machine?
Even more than "making us grateful"--such adventures remind me that we in
USA coiuld create & invent & adapt systems that would work even better for
us than the ones we now have!
Karen