Essau
Last weekend as we were all going out for dinner Marc asked if I wanted to go along with him to Essau on Monday to help do computer surveys. Bear had already went with him a few weeks before , for a few days, to set up the lab; Marc now had to go back and do the survey. Since I didn't teach I agreed to go with him on Monday.
Sunday night I couldn't remember if he said: "Meet at the corner at six, since the ferry leaves at seven." or, "meet at the corner at seven, since the ferry leaves at eight." Too late to call, so I figured I'd be there at six and if I had to wait an hour was better then missing him by an hour. At six in the morning he arrived, on time. We waited for a taxi and finally a gelli-gelli came. No one was inside so we got front-seat for the whole ride to Bakau. At Bakau we had to get another taxi to Banjul, then another taxi from Banjul to the ferry terminal. However, at Bakau waiting for a taxi to show up a man going to work in Banjul said he'll drive us straight to the terminal for D30 each. Deal. By 6:30 we at the ferry terminal, earlier then expected. The "7:00" ferry usually leaves around 7:30, and the 8:00 ferry leaves around 9:30, and just gets progressively later.
The ferry left close to 7:30 with more then a hundred people on it, comparatively empty compared to later in the day. We actually had seats. During the half-hour ride going north from Banjul to Essau he explained the survey we had to do to. We would split up in two groups. One would do an internet search survey with him. He would ask questions like: "Find any book that mentions a whale." This, hoping they would type in "book whale" in the search engine or any derivatives thereof. The most common first search he found was "visa America". One student, after a half-dozen encouragements used all possible combinations of words in the sentence, except the key words! ["find that", "a any mentions", etc.] This is to test their comprehension skills of typing in what they need to find. Very few "pass" (by American standards).
The other group I would be surveying. They would have to show basic tasks on the computer: Where is the Start menu, open Microsoft Word, minimize it, maximize it, resize it, open Microsoft Excel, switch back to Microsoft Word, type any sentence, underline, bold, and italic different words from that sentence, how would you print, how would you shut off the computer. That is all they had to do. These are students in High School who received the highest recommendations from their teachers of knowing computers. I thought for such recommended students this test would be a too easy and maybe even insulting. He explained that I'll be lucky if I could find one student that could do all of the above tasks.
After crossing the Ferry we got on another gelli-gelli going to Essau. A few minutes later, they got to the junction where they were going the opposite of where we were going. They let us get out without wanting to be paid. We had to walk the rest of the way to the school. Twenty minutes, and a quick bean-sandwich to-go later, we arrived at the Essau Senior Secondary School. If they had power we could get done by noon, if not, then any number of hours later.
Marc went to the Principal, whom he met before and got the computer assistant to go with him to the computer lab with the key. The lab had six computers but no electricity. A Peace Corps volunteer a year ago installed solar panels to the computer lab and so we went to see if we could get the solar batteries to work. There were six huge batteries, each on its own chair, all connected in series. All were drained, except for one; the first. That could power the lab if we could somehow connect the power supplies. The solar panels used American plugs, the inverter used English and the power supply for the computers used Gambian. We decided to work on that later, and try the generator first. Less confusion there.
The computer lab had it's own generator that could be plugged into the extension cords to run the computers, if it had fuel. Marc reached into his pocket and paid the school a couple hundred Dalasi for three hours of fuel. The school didn't have fuel. Eventually a student was found who wasn't in class and was told to take this bottle and money and bike the mile or so to the petrol station to get fuel. A half-hour later the fuel arrived. I thought the last time I mowed the lawn and had to fill up the tank and rip the cord would be my last. Memories of mowing the lawn raced through my head as I ripped that cord and the generator started.
No power was reaching the computers. Using trial-and-error we realized some extension cords weren't working. We finally got them in an order that worked. By the time we got the computers to work it was two hours into the three-hours of fuel paid for and the set up looked something you see in MacGyver. The generator had loose wires we had to tape into place because the plugs didn't match. The first extension cord had the cover pried open since the fuse broke and we had to replace the fuse with a screwdriver. The second extension cord had a stick sticking out of one of the ground terminals. This was so we could use the voltmeter probes in the other two holes to measure voltage and amperage settings. They were a bit variable and so we got the UPS attached to it. UPS stands for "Uninterrupted Power Supply". Learned how they worked too: It has a battery inside of it. When the voltage gets lower then 240 it uses the battery to up it to that amount. If it's more then 240 then it charges the battery by the excess amount. All the computers in the Peace Corps office work by them too. When the power goes out, we have ten minutes to turn on the generator before the computers die.
All in all we got two computers to work, out of six. That's all we needed. The generator was making so much noise that it was a constant headache, but we could finally get the survey done. I quizzed the student the ten questions. Not bad, nine out of ten. It went downhill from there. One girl knew two things: How to open Microsoft Word and how to shut down the machine. Another girl confused minimized and maximize and switching documents and so by the time the questionnaire ended for her she had seven Word documents opened. Their typing was one letter at a time with just the index fingers of each hand with about 2-3 seconds between letters.
These were the best students.
After the students were done we agreed to try and get the solar panels working again. We brought the UPS to the other room. This solved the one problem of English to Gambian plug converters. We next had to cut an extension cord in half, strip the wires and tape two of them into the cord to the computer lab. No power. We try again, checking power sources. We have power going into the plug, but not the wires. We were about to cut another extension cord when I realized we had the ground plugged in where they should be the only one not plugged in. Shut the power off, take the tape off, switch the wires, tape them back up, and plug them in. We have power!
By around two o'clock and called it a day. We walked outside and started walking back to the ferry terminal when we got picked up by a gelli-gelli and get a lift. The ferry was about the leave and so we rushed to the near front of the line. When the gates opened it was a tidal wave of people wanted to get on board. We rushed to get on, not because of the people or to get a seat but so Marc can get a picture from the third floor looking down at the hundreds more of people wanting to get on and all still trying, until the captain ordered enough. Standing room only.
-MIke
Sunday night I couldn't remember if he said: "Meet at the corner at six, since the ferry leaves at seven." or, "meet at the corner at seven, since the ferry leaves at eight." Too late to call, so I figured I'd be there at six and if I had to wait an hour was better then missing him by an hour. At six in the morning he arrived, on time. We waited for a taxi and finally a gelli-gelli came. No one was inside so we got front-seat for the whole ride to Bakau. At Bakau we had to get another taxi to Banjul, then another taxi from Banjul to the ferry terminal. However, at Bakau waiting for a taxi to show up a man going to work in Banjul said he'll drive us straight to the terminal for D30 each. Deal. By 6:30 we at the ferry terminal, earlier then expected. The "7:00" ferry usually leaves around 7:30, and the 8:00 ferry leaves around 9:30, and just gets progressively later.
The ferry left close to 7:30 with more then a hundred people on it, comparatively empty compared to later in the day. We actually had seats. During the half-hour ride going north from Banjul to Essau he explained the survey we had to do to. We would split up in two groups. One would do an internet search survey with him. He would ask questions like: "Find any book that mentions a whale." This, hoping they would type in "book whale" in the search engine or any derivatives thereof. The most common first search he found was "visa America". One student, after a half-dozen encouragements used all possible combinations of words in the sentence, except the key words! ["find that", "a any mentions", etc.] This is to test their comprehension skills of typing in what they need to find. Very few "pass" (by American standards).
The other group I would be surveying. They would have to show basic tasks on the computer: Where is the Start menu, open Microsoft Word, minimize it, maximize it, resize it, open Microsoft Excel, switch back to Microsoft Word, type any sentence, underline, bold, and italic different words from that sentence, how would you print, how would you shut off the computer. That is all they had to do. These are students in High School who received the highest recommendations from their teachers of knowing computers. I thought for such recommended students this test would be a too easy and maybe even insulting. He explained that I'll be lucky if I could find one student that could do all of the above tasks.
After crossing the Ferry we got on another gelli-gelli going to Essau. A few minutes later, they got to the junction where they were going the opposite of where we were going. They let us get out without wanting to be paid. We had to walk the rest of the way to the school. Twenty minutes, and a quick bean-sandwich to-go later, we arrived at the Essau Senior Secondary School. If they had power we could get done by noon, if not, then any number of hours later.
Marc went to the Principal, whom he met before and got the computer assistant to go with him to the computer lab with the key. The lab had six computers but no electricity. A Peace Corps volunteer a year ago installed solar panels to the computer lab and so we went to see if we could get the solar batteries to work. There were six huge batteries, each on its own chair, all connected in series. All were drained, except for one; the first. That could power the lab if we could somehow connect the power supplies. The solar panels used American plugs, the inverter used English and the power supply for the computers used Gambian. We decided to work on that later, and try the generator first. Less confusion there.
The computer lab had it's own generator that could be plugged into the extension cords to run the computers, if it had fuel. Marc reached into his pocket and paid the school a couple hundred Dalasi for three hours of fuel. The school didn't have fuel. Eventually a student was found who wasn't in class and was told to take this bottle and money and bike the mile or so to the petrol station to get fuel. A half-hour later the fuel arrived. I thought the last time I mowed the lawn and had to fill up the tank and rip the cord would be my last. Memories of mowing the lawn raced through my head as I ripped that cord and the generator started.
No power was reaching the computers. Using trial-and-error we realized some extension cords weren't working. We finally got them in an order that worked. By the time we got the computers to work it was two hours into the three-hours of fuel paid for and the set up looked something you see in MacGyver. The generator had loose wires we had to tape into place because the plugs didn't match. The first extension cord had the cover pried open since the fuse broke and we had to replace the fuse with a screwdriver. The second extension cord had a stick sticking out of one of the ground terminals. This was so we could use the voltmeter probes in the other two holes to measure voltage and amperage settings. They were a bit variable and so we got the UPS attached to it. UPS stands for "Uninterrupted Power Supply". Learned how they worked too: It has a battery inside of it. When the voltage gets lower then 240 it uses the battery to up it to that amount. If it's more then 240 then it charges the battery by the excess amount. All the computers in the Peace Corps office work by them too. When the power goes out, we have ten minutes to turn on the generator before the computers die.
All in all we got two computers to work, out of six. That's all we needed. The generator was making so much noise that it was a constant headache, but we could finally get the survey done. I quizzed the student the ten questions. Not bad, nine out of ten. It went downhill from there. One girl knew two things: How to open Microsoft Word and how to shut down the machine. Another girl confused minimized and maximize and switching documents and so by the time the questionnaire ended for her she had seven Word documents opened. Their typing was one letter at a time with just the index fingers of each hand with about 2-3 seconds between letters.
These were the best students.
After the students were done we agreed to try and get the solar panels working again. We brought the UPS to the other room. This solved the one problem of English to Gambian plug converters. We next had to cut an extension cord in half, strip the wires and tape two of them into the cord to the computer lab. No power. We try again, checking power sources. We have power going into the plug, but not the wires. We were about to cut another extension cord when I realized we had the ground plugged in where they should be the only one not plugged in. Shut the power off, take the tape off, switch the wires, tape them back up, and plug them in. We have power!
By around two o'clock and called it a day. We walked outside and started walking back to the ferry terminal when we got picked up by a gelli-gelli and get a lift. The ferry was about the leave and so we rushed to the near front of the line. When the gates opened it was a tidal wave of people wanted to get on board. We rushed to get on, not because of the people or to get a seat but so Marc can get a picture from the third floor looking down at the hundreds more of people wanting to get on and all still trying, until the captain ordered enough. Standing room only.
-MIke
posted by Mike | 12:59 AM
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