Nine months ago, she says, her family was poor and had no work. Then Begum took out a loan from Mohammed Unis's Gramin bank, bought a cellular phone, and began offering it for a fee to neighbors and other villagers who need to make calls. Sometimes there are 20 or 30 or more, sometimes even 50 or 60 people waiting to make calls. They sit all over the house. The first to arrive get the chairs, others sit on the floor, and the rest line up outside.
Begum charges the equivalent of six cents per minute, a fee townspeople are happy to pay.
Before she got her phone, the only way to get a message to someone in another town or city was to walk, hire a rickshaw, or take a bus and go there in person. Calling overseas meant traveling to the city and waiting, often for days, for a pay phone. Begum says having a telephone is amazing. Since having the phone, I feel really good. It's helping a lot of people, not just me.