On Trek
on Phil Bradfield (The Gambia), 23/Jun/2010 10:47, 34 days ago
(Written 22/06/2010 21:45, My House, Janjanbureh)“Going on trek”, is the name used here for leaving the office and going out visiting other locations. Kombos-based people will go “on trek” when they come on long trips upcountry, while Pete and Liz regularly go on trek for a day when they go to visit schools. And yesterday, for the first time, I got to go on trek properly as well.I went out to two schools which were having computer problems and asked for my help. Pete, being the angel that he is (and not wanting to spend a whole day in the office where he knew he’d just get bored!) gave me a lift on his bike. The schools were both on the north bank and close to the road, so most of the ride was on the relatively new tarmac highway. More comfortable than going to Bansang certainly, but a lot less entertaining. The scenery isn’t as pretty, and a smooth, five kilometre-long straight just isn’t quite the same, somehow. Especially when your bike can only reach about 60kph.Anyway, the first school I visited was pretty impressive, really. They had a nice clean computer lab with twelve machines in it, all nicely covered against the dust. I was introduced to Mr Secka and Mr Secka (or Secka 1 and Secka 3, as the head calls them, and yes there is a Secka 2 as well), who are in charge of the lab and do the teaching there. Secka 1 (first name Alieu, IIRC) showed me a textbook he’d written himself, which looked pretty good to me, and told me about how they try to teach a mixture of practical and theory. I’d have liked to observe a lesson, but there weren’t any going on while I was there.I also did what they asked me to do: look at their office computer and try to fix it. I had no idea what the problem was before I got there (Gambians are not good at describing problems, I’ve discovered) but it turned out they wanted me to get rid of a virus infestation. No joy there though; whatever infection it’s got is too severe for any treatments I know, and I’ve learned a hell of a lot about treating viruses in the last few months! I left Secka 1 with instructions that heshould reformat the drive and reinstall Windows.The second school... well, that was a whole different ball game. The school itself is outside the town and has no mains electricity, but they showed us their computer room, complete with big-ass batteries which they can charge from their (currently non-functioning) generator, and an inverter (also currently non-functioning) which the computers connect into.The computers themselves had been taken a“short distance” to a health centre in the centre of town where they had electricity, so I could have a look at them (making this the first IT project I’ve ever worked on where a donkey cart has been vital to the operation). The “short distance” turned out to be over 3km; fortunate we hadthe bike! When we got there, the headteacher showed Pete and I into a “consulting room”, although I wouldn’t care to guess when the last consultation took place there. The floor was caked in dust; the only furniture was a sink. Strewn on the floor in kind of order were four ancient PCs (one soold it had a 5” floppy drive!), together with monitors, keyboards and a single, solitary mouse. These were covered, but still pretty grimy. On two of the machines, the cases were loose and didn’t fit back on properly.So, squatting on the floor amid the clouds of dust, Pete and I tried to fire these old relics up (after sending the head off to find a power cable, which for some reason had been left at the school). Two wouldn’t even power on, one powered on but refused to output anything to the monitor, and the fourth consistently gave a BIOS error. We got out of there pretty quickly; it was obvious that the situation was hopeless. We may be able to get the last one working if we can get hold of a new CMOS battery, but it’s so old as to be nigh on useless even if it is repairable. The four of them are, basically, scrap metal. Pete’s offered to help the head to write a letter to his twin school asking for replacements. According to the head, the ones they’ve got were donated to the school four or five yearsago, and I know full well that they must have been junk even then. So, this is a message to anyone considering donating equipment to developing countries: just because they’re poor doesn’t mean you can foist your crap on them. If you donate rubbish, you just create extra problems for people whohave too many already.I think the two schools I went to sum up the two ends of the spectrum here: one running (apparently) pretty smoothly, with good links set up to enable them to get equipment and strategies for generating their own income; the other in a state of minor chaos. OK, so they thought far enough ahead to transport the computers to where the power was, but could they not have transported a desk at the same time, so we wouldn’t be working on the floor? There was one in the computer room which wasn’t being used. And, seriously guys, it only takes a minute to sweep out a room that size. Working here, you learn very quickly that this kind of lack of foresight is pretty endemic, which was why I was so pleasantly surprised at the first school.It was good to get out of the office; it is a bit frustrating sometimes to be in this incredible country and then spend most of my time in one building! It’s also a completely different feel: the day goes a lot quicker, generally, and you get to meet new people and see different places. I don’t know when I’ll next get the opportunity, but I hope I’ll be going out again before too long.