Llamarme

When someone in Ecuador or in Colombia says “call me”, they aren’t just hoping for the flattery of receiving a phone call.  And they sure do hope you call them, so they don’t have to call you.  That’s right. Everyone avoids making the phone call, and for good reason. 

While the people in the United States have wonderful options for a cell phone plan, with the capability of having unlimited minutes and unlimited text messages, the people in South America do not. All the cell phones here have prepaid coverage.  After buying a phone (the most popular one is a standard nokia), one buys a company chip and minutes.  There are two cell phone companies- Porta and MovieStar.  MovieStar is less expensive so most people go with MovieStar.  However, Porta has better coverage in the Galapagos, so most people in the Galapagos have Porta. 

Knowing what company your friends have is important.  Calling or texting someone with the same company as you costs a lot less.  While sending one text message from Porta to Porta costs 5 cents, sending one text message from Porta to Moviestar costs 15 cents.  I’m unsure of the cost to make a phone call- it might cost 10 cents a minute.  The cost of calling a home phone from a cell phone really adds up- I heard it can be as much as 25 cents a minute. 

The catch of it all is receiving text messages and phone calls costs nothing.  So most people avoid making a phone call; and simply wait until the other person calls them.  When on the phone, conversations are kept to a minimum. 

Since the minutes for use are prepaid, the user doesn’t receive a bill.  Minutes are bought in many convenience stores, internet café’s, and other shops around town.  Finding a place to buy minutes is thankfully easy.  Because, often one finds themselves in a dilemma in which additional minutes are needed in short notice. 

From my experience, I have realized few people check their remaining minutes on their phone; I am also guilty of failing to check.  So, often others (including myself) are in the middle of a conversation when all of a sudden the call ends; the caller can not message or call anyone else until more minutes are purchased because the caller’s minutes ran out.  This is especially troublesome when the caller runs out of minutes in mid call and the receiver is also out of minutes (remember receiving calls are free so you can still receive a call when out of minutes).  Such an incident has happened to mostly everyone I know, including myself.  Luckily when it happened to me the other night, I was able to tell my friend where to meet me just prior to the call being dropped.  So we were fortunate to have gotten the most important part of the message across before having the conversation end prematurely without warning.

To prevent these situations from occurring and to save money, everyone prefers to receive calls.  So when someone says “llamarme” (“call me”), they really do mean for you to call them. J