Our setup

So some OLPC people have asked us to describe our technical setup. At the moment, since our server is not working, we are using a switch to rout the internet to the different routers. The school is setup like this:



with the headmasters office in grey. The blue spot is where the DSL modem, (A D-Link DSL 2640) is located, as well as the switch and the server. The internet setup there is as follows: telephone line->modem->switch->out to routers, since the server is not yet working. When the server is setup, the internet should flow like: telephone line->modem->server->switch->out to routers. The red dots are the routers, and the green lines are the ethernet cables.

From the headmasters office, we drilled a hole through the wall, stuck some ethernet cable in a plastic hose and buried it going out to the two buildings. Once it gets to the buildings, we've enclosed the naked ethernet cable in a conduit like:



The cable comes in at the bottom and terminates at the top like:



In addition, there is an electrical outlet for the router there too:
In that picture, the router is not wired up, here it is:


Because of the different configurations of the rooms, all the different shelves are in different places, for example in another room, the shelf is closer to the floor:

You might have noticed before that we have two ethernet jacks in our conduit, with cable coming out of both of them. That's because our routers are daisy-chained (connected) to each other, but not directly. If they were connected directly, the cable might have broken/torn the router itself if it was ripped out of the router, and we would have to buy a lot more cable to fix it. Instead, the internet comes in through one jack in the conduit, then a short cable comes from the router and goes back to the conduit, and then we have a cable on the wall going to the other router in that building. See this picture:

The router in the picture is closer to the headmasters building. The other routers don't need that second short cable because they're not connected to another router down the line.

Right now all the routers have the same SSID (network name), and the hope is that whatever router you are closest to your computer will connect to. We turned down the wireless broadcasting strength in DD-WRT to 10 mW (from 28 normally) so that we wouldn't be broadcasting outside school walls:



Currently, we've been having some problems with the internet slowing down and we're not sure if it's related to the fact that we're using the internet more or if it's because there are 5 wireless routers (the modem is also sending out a wireless signal because it's a combo dsl modem+switch+wireless access point) and even though we've put them on different channels (1, 6, and 11) there are two that are interfering with the others. We're going to do some testing once we get the server and disconnect a router + turn off the wireless of the modem to see if three routers + the server can handle the load of a lot of laptops. We're going to try to connect a lot of laptops to one specific router and see what happens, to see if the server handles all the ejabbered requests properly. Maybe the internet will be a little better once we have the server b/c we'll have the SQUID internet caching service working.

In other news, today was our second day of teacher training and it went quite well. After diving into a learning activity the first day, we backed up and taught the computer starting from the basics. We drew the keyboard on the board:

and had Devon explain what all the buttons and ports were used for. Next, Devon explained the entire user interface - Home, Group, Neighborhood, Journal, and Frame. We practiced sharing activities and as usual, sometimes it didn't work. I think this was a good thing because it shows the teachers that there are going to be problems with the laptops.

As to be expected, there are some teachers who are really excellent and who have used computers before, and there are some teachers who lag behind. The main barriers are the fact that the keyboard and touchpad are small and unforgiving to larger (i.e. adult) hands, and that we don't speak the language. My french is getting better, but it's still hard to understand when people ask me questions out of the blue. It's much easier for me to understand when I ask them a question and expect a certain response.

It's really nice to finally dive into some real work here! In the coming weeks, we're going to be constructing charging cabinets for the XO, finishing up teacher training, and starting to work with the kids. Also, we ordered 10 more XO's from OLPC to completely saturate the top 5 grades.

By the way, the top 5 grades have this student distribution:
Grade - # students - appx age - teacher name
CP - 49 ~8 - Jean-Claude Sagna
CE - 46 ~9 - Francoise Thiaw
CE2 - 39 ~10 - Mme Elizabeth
CM1 - 33 ~11 - Helene Diagne
CM2 - 37 ~12 - Pierre Khar Tine - also the headmaster

There is a lowest grade, CI, but we don't have enough computers to cover it. The incoming class from the preschool is about 30 kids and it would be too much. In any event, that adds up to 204 kids - however we have 5 teachers, plus the technology director of catholic schools (Elizabeth) who we are giving a laptop to, which brings our grand total of laptops needed to 210 - which is why we need to buy 10 more!

Fortunately, because the UMiami team no longer needs their solar panels (they had ordered 50 in the event that they were going to Kankossa, Mauritania), they are sending the panels back and we are getting credited for those panels (~$1,200). Which means that half the cost of the laptops ($200* 10 laptops + $400 shipping = $2,400) is being defrayed, putting this unexpected purchase happily within our budget. More laptops = more happy kids!

Out of the box(es)

Today we began teacher training at Ecole Notre Dame. Over the weekend we mapped out our three day plan and got up on time to start the part of the project that we have anticipated for the past weeks. We arrived at school around 9 am before our scheduled start at 10. We moved the desks around the classroom, where we have stored the computers, into a circle and then waited for the teachers to arrive.

Once most of our crowd arrived James, in a game time change in the line up, stood up and addressed the teachers. Last night we discussed how to introduce the laptop and I think James hit all the points although I could not follow all of it. Just as James was opening his notebook to inform Devon of his speech, Devon encouraged James to utilize his French skills and it turned out well. The teachers nodded along as James explained that the laptop was not an ordinary computer, but and educational device, and then we opened it up.

When the teachers opened the computer several wondered if their's was ok as it took a little while to start up. Once everyone had successfully booted up their computer we had them change their computer into French. This took a little while as we explained step by step how to go to the control panel and then the language submenu to eventually reach the French language feature. During this process we were spread out through the room and helped with skills ranging from mousing to clicking. Some learned how to scroll through the menu with the up and down keys on the keyboard.

Most of the teachers speak Serere as their first language as we are working in Catholic school and that is the ethnicity and mother tongue of most of this group. Secondly, they speak Wolof as it is the language spoken in public for the vast majority of Senegal. Then most educated people speak French and the more educated people speak another language or too, usually English or another Western one.

With the computers in French we opened up the Record activity. The teachers took a picture of themselves after we briefly explained the process. Again the five of us were integrated into the circle so they had easy access to additional demonstration or answers to most of their questions. After most had command of our first program we opened up the write activity and most started writing either about the training and their feelings or a short bit about their family.

Taking from our collective experiences in Rwanda we decided to have each of the teachers create a multiple language dictionary with photographs. This learning project uses the Record and Write activity in addition to teaching skills such as switching programs, naming files, inserting images, and formating a document. It might sounds a bit ambitious and it turned out as such. Still the success of the project and skills aquired by the teachers was impressive.

Most of the teachers completed a good portion of the project. Each teacher besides one, who had technical issues on her computer, successfully imported pictures and added text to the dictionary.

We started presentations, but the force of Senegalese dejeuner (lunch) was too strong for us to combat. We decided to pick up tomorrow.

After a long afternoon of discussions and rest Stephanie, Justin, James and I had the opportunity to be the first customers at the opening of our land lord's tea house. Neen, omlette sandwiches, and fataya were on the menu in addition to coffee. It was not a classic grand opening as most would imagine, but it was a nice change of pace to be in a dining room that did not contain the heat of the stove and with enough space to feel a good breeze.

Some Video from our trip

You can tell that Stephanie is excited! This was taken some time ago, on the 23rd of June.

Dance, Rhetoric, Wrestle, Rice

James and I originally decided to apply to OLPCorps for a deployment in Tidjikja, Mauritania with the Peace Corps as our local partner because my brother, Seth, is living and working there. We both thought that the project was a good idea, but without a dependable connection we didn't know if the project could work. As it turned out it can. Only a few weeks after we first corresponded with our new Peace Corps contact, we found ourselves fully situated into our school, Ecole Notre Dame, and watching a traditional wrestling match just feet away from the mayor of Mboro. Drumming in the back ground too.

On consecutive weekends we have seen wrestling matches in Mboro. For the first we waited through the dancing, singing and a few speaches for over four hours before the first grapple. The scene in general is completely masculine, but there are women too in a healthy minorty. They sit mostly on one side of the stands, while a few more take seats in the VIP section under the awning.

At our first match we sat only feet away from the current mayor of our town; this past saturday across the stands from the mayor who won the election. Yes it's true. In a contested election the candidate who received the most votes was passed over by his political party for the current mayor. The current mayor has brought much controversy to Mboro for a few reaspons including his religion. The elected candidate in Muslim, like the majority of people in Mboro, while the newly instated mayor is Catholic like the small minority of this town.

In both cases after a few short speaches and a good deal of dancing and singing, the politics took a back seat to the grappling in the sand pit. Each wrestler comes with a couple of buddies to the match and they dance around and participating in ceremonies ranging from pouring water on the wrestler's head to burying leaves in the center of the pit. Nothing sillier than Nomar Garciaparra stepping into the batter's box.

The actual wrestling is a small portion of the time that most people spend at the arena, but it is highly anticipated and exciting. The wreslers swing their arms at each other and try to get a good grasp of their opponent. Often they lock up and can stay that way for a good bit of the fight. The first one on their back loses, while the victor's supporters rush through the string barrier held up by wooden poles to celebrate in a college football way. And instead of a shiny trophy, the winner goes home with a huge bag of rice and a box of sugar.

Development in Africa

Some interesting observations that I've made (obviously from a western perspective) about Senegal:

The entire place shuts down from 1pm to 3pm. Without exception, people take a 2 hour long lunch break. It's really hard to do anything when there's no air conditioning and the humidity is like 70-80%.

There is little formal economy - i.e. the concept of "a hard days work" is foreign to most people because depending on how you look at it, they're always working or they're never working. You could say that everyone is always working because most boutique owners live in their boutique and if you want something at 3am they'll wake up and sell it to you. At the same time you could say that nobody is ever working because they're kind of lounging around their store all the time just talking with friends. The point is that almost nobody in Mboro except for factory workers has a job in the way we think about it in the United States. They all just sell mangos on the side of the street or own a boutique that's been in their family for ages. The reason the town does well is because the factory workers at the phosphorus mine/sulfuric acid plant get paid relatively well and spend their money in town. If not for that industry, the town would just be like every other town in Senegal - completely agrarian and dependent on weather/seasonal change for prosperity.

Sleep is not sacred. We were coming back late one night to the place where we are staying (it's an NGO run by this guy Mohamed Mbengue), and it was about 3am. He had locked the front door, so we were locked out, and we woke him up. In America, it would have been irresponsible of us to come back so late without telling him, and then to wake him up, because he had told us when he was locking the door. So when I called his phone to wake him up so we could get into our room to go to sleep, I was pretty apologetic - but he didn't really have a problem with it. I was talking to Devon and he was saying that we could basically show up at some persons house completely randomly and just hang out, watch tv, and ask for tea. In most situations in America, that would be unacceptable. Here, people would be fairly okay with it. (Disclaimer: I haven't actually tried this, but Devon says it's happened to him once or twice. Eli seemed intrigued by this possibility and wanted to try sometime.)

Speaking of Mohamed, since he was the head of this local NGO called Projet D'Appui, I figured that he would be really "with it." He invited us to his room for tea a couple of times, and through our broken french/english/wolof conversations, I have determined that though he has been the head of the NGO for a year and 4 months, has a place that he uses for programs and rents out to random people (i.e. us and some other teacher), and has some money, he has no project plan. As an American (and the son of a project manager), this kind of blows my mind. He has this operation, a facility, money, and no written plan. I went to Africa for 2 months and I wrote down a detailed list of things I had to do, things I wanted to do, some goals, the dependencies, etc. The point is, this is an educated man and he's winging a major project. When asked about it, he said he had it mostly in his head and that he was solving problems as he identified them, but it didn't seem completely kosher. The idea of even creating a general outline just didn't occur to him because nobody else does it either. The attitude of "Inshallah" - god willing, it will happen, is pervasive.

Another thing is Senegalese generosity. An example of this was when we went to the factory club - it's probably the nicest place in town, and sandwiches cost 1000 CFA (about 2 bucks). Anyways, we were there with two of Devon's friends, and at the end they wanted to pay for everything that we had eaten and drank (this was not an insignificant amount of money). The point is we had met them literally the second before we went to dinner, and they already wanted to give us money, pay for stuff, etc. Senegalese society pressures them to do this if they have the money to do so. In my experience, and from what Devon has told me, if a Senegalese person gets money, s/he spends it quickly not because s/he is irresponsible, but because there is a sick cousin, or a baby shower, or a friend in need, etc. People expect other people to do this - it's kind of like a self-regulating form of socialism.

So back to the title of this blog - development in Africa. The point is that all of these things make development in the way that westerners think about it hard. The workday is shorter, there are no jobs other than what natural resources provide, planning is a foreign concept, and money is given out freely to friends and family.

Fortunately, the people at the school that we're working with are extremely competent and most of these things that I've mentioned before have not been a problem. Maybe it's because we are coming with supplies and not just money, or maybe it's because we're teaching them how to be self-sufficient with the computers, or maybe it's because they just "get it." Whatever it is, Devon helped us pick a great school, because everyone is excited and motivated to make this happen - from the headmaster to the teachers to the janitor to the donkey cart driver (who I need to get a picture of because he's such a character) everyone is great. And that's what keeps me going though there have been many snags and changes in our plan - the enthusiasm of everyone that's going to benefit from this project.

Abra Kadabra

When James and I first started our proposal to deploy laptops in the developing world, we knew that there would be problems that we did not plan for. When we switched our deployment site just days before arriving in Dakar we didn't know what to think. Now with some concerted effort and a good bit of luck we are well on our way to accomplishing our goals for the summer.

Devon Connolly, our new Peace Corps contact and local leader of the project has turned out to be fantastic. Many other Peace Corps Volunteers(PCVs) comment on his outstanding knowledge of Wolof and the culture at our site in Mboro. Also, the Peace Corps administration got our computers through customs on Monday. We hadn't expected them until Friday. We brought a few boxes of computers along with us from Dakar and the rest followed in another Peace Corps vehicle on Tuesday. Our European power adapters, which were shipped to Nouakchott, the capital of Mauritania, arrived today after the Peace Corps Mauritania passed them along to the Senegalese driver at the border.

On Tuesday the director of the school had cable run from the office to the two independent buildings. Each building has three classrooms and we will run cable between each room for our routers. After we complete the installation all the computers will wirelessly connect to the school server. Also, we unpacked the computers and reflashed them (installed new programs and the new version of the operating system).

Yesterday we had a meeting with the teachers and explained the program to them. They are excited and realistic about the program. They asked good questions and while Devon acted as a translator

through most of it, our presence

was appreciated.

We will finish our installation soon and then begin on teacher training. Yesterday at our meeting in Thies with the regional director of schools, the training of teachers was heavily emphasized. The conversation also leaned towards the benefits of information technology or ICT as it is called here. It will be interesting to see the benefits of the XO laptop going forward as we believe in the learning idealogy of the One Laptop Per Child Association, however we cannot neglect the obvious benefits of exposing children to computers that have never used one at length before.

Dakar is Different

So when we got to Dakar 2 days ago, we immediately noticed how things were different just by the way the immigration guys gave us a hard time. In Rwanda, the immigration officials kind of looked at our passport, flipped through it to check out the visas from the different places, and stamped it. Here, the guy barked at me and interrogated me about where in Mboro I was going before Eli rescued me by telling the officer something about the Peace Corps in Dakar.

Speaking of the Peace Corps, I am so glad that they're our NGO. They're providing us with cars to drive the laptops up to Mboro, they're talking to customs for us and just making our lives a lot easier. We've been sleeping at the regional house (which is a little Peace Corps hostel that volunteers stay at when they come into Dakar for whatever reason) and all the PCV's there are a bunch of wonderfully skeptical and hilarious people. I have now heard more stories about sept-places (station wagons with 7 seats in them) than I would ever want to. Some crazy stuff goes on in Senegal and Mauritania - trucks tipping over on the way to Guinea, a little bit of pyrotechnics, goats being strapped to the roofs of cars, etc. Most people really love their sites, though it is slow going for everyone. There is no pill that will make Africa "better".

Going back to Dakar, people are a little more aggressive here - somebody is always trying to sell you something on the street, or trying to get you into a taxi. It's pretty dirty here, people just throw trash into the street or spit out the window. However, the food is definitely better than Mauritania. They have great baguettes, just like France, so the sandwiches are quite good and cheap. (the exchange rate is 450 CFA to 1 dollar). Yesterday, I ate a bean sandwich for breakfast for 150 CFA, then ate an egg sandwich for lunch for 300 CFA, then ate 2 goat (or lamb? counldn't tell) sandwiches for 500 each for dinner. So total that's 1450 CFA, which is like 3 bucks for food for an entire day. Pretty crazy, not going to lie.

On Monday we're going out to Mboro to settle into our apartment, meet Devon, and start doing what we came here to do. From what all the Peace Corps Volunteers say, Mboro is quite beautiful, so I'm pretty psyched about going. We'll see what the actual situation in the school is when we get there. From what I heave from PCV's, kids don't speak a whole lot of French - it could be a problem, but we don't know yet.

That's what's going on - give us a call at (+221) 77 358 7498 or shoot us an email/comment on the blog if you want to get in touch.