Staying on a Little Longer

Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian friends and family!

Suck it, rest of you!

First, thank you to my mom for pointing out that I had left the default settings on the comments so you had to login to leave a comment. That’s now fixed, mom. You can write those comments now.

On Friday morning, Anne and I discussed my staying on at Jifundishe for this week as they are installing Shule-Direct this Wednesday. Shule-Direct – shule means school – is the Tanzanian government’s eLearning component of their curriculum. The great thing about Shule-Direct is that it can be loaded onto the RACHEL-Pi server and therefore, it is available even when the Internet is unavailable. All this is to say that I am still in Ngongongare until Thursday.

My home until Thursday

I spent a relatively quiet weekend in Ngongongare. Relatively quiet because the church choir practiced all weekend. They started Friday at 5pm, and they stopped only for power outages, sleep, and the portions of the Sunday Service they weren’t required to sing. Normally, I would love the idea of live music all weekend except they sang three songs. Over and over and over and over and over. Add to that, the lead singer is tone deaf and kept trying to hit notes well outside her limited range. I know it’s a small village and they are reliant on the talent available, but I refuse to believe this woman is the best this village has to offer. When they finally stopped at 10pm Sunday night, I was tempted to go outside and start cheering.

Other than the cacophony from my neighbours, it was a weekend where nothing really happened. I relaxed, read a novel, went for walks, practiced my Swahili with Frida, stopped by the local duka (shop) for Coca baridi (cold Coke), and picked up Anne’s cold from last week.

The blue-ish duka in the middle is where I buy my Coca baridi

Okay, so that last part wasn’t so fun but Anne passed on her cold medicine and I’m feeling much better. It’s agreed that if I still have a sore throat tomorrow then I’ll head to the clinic to double check. Poor Frida looked so concerned when she saw me take the medicine at lunch today; I had to assure her that the dawa (medicine) was not related to her cooking.

Where I spend my days

Today, I started introducing the students and teachers to RACHEL-Pi. Well, a student-teacher today, Amret. I had him walk through my instructions on how to switch from the Internet to RACHEL-Pi. Initially, he was unimpressed by what appeared to be just a regular internet page. Then I explained to him that you could use this when the internet is down or when the power is out. I could have told him I was giving him $1,000,000 and I think his reaction would have been the same.

Then I showed him that he could connect with his phone.

“But then I have to use data.”

“No. When you connect to RACHEL-Pi, it doesn’t use your data. You are connected to their free server so it costs you nothing.”

“So, I bring my phone to Jifundishe, open up one of these books on RACHEL-Pi, read it, and it will cost me nothing?”

“That’s right.”

“So, the computer lab is full, I can still study these Wikipedia articles on my phone.”

“Yes.”

“And it doesn’t use my data?”

“No.”

“I have to tell my class. I have to tell everyone.”

As I was packing up, he was already showing other students in the computer room how to log onto the server and I felt a small twinge of remorse that I had to take the server away albeit temporarily. We walked out together chatting about RACHEL-Pi and what it would mean for the students. When we came to his group of friends studying on the lawn, we said goodbye and I headed back to Cacti House (the volunteer quarters). He was talking to his friends too quickly for me to catch what he said, but I did hear him say “RACHEL-Pi”.

Education is, in my opinion, one of the cornerstones to eradicating poverty. Whether in a formal classroom setting or through visiting a free library, education can improve lives. Even just the simple knowledge of how to keep a clean water source safe can help a community. RACHEL-Pi is the brainchild of a group called World Possible. In the words of Amret today, "they really do make the world possible." Please visit their page and consider making a donation.

Some of the students heading home