The work begins

6/22/2009

1st day of OLPC work. I woke up extra early today and Paul and I went into town to get breakfast with for the rest of the group. We picked up fresh baked goods, some eggs and mango juice/nectar. By the time we got back, everyone was ready and good to go. We had breakfast and we were on our way. We were scheduled to meet with Roberta, our contact within the IGO Step up, that we are working with. We went discussed what we were planning to do with her and our restrictions and she gave us a list of schools that would fit our restrictions.

When I talk of restrictions, I mean things like age limit, (OLPC wants to focus on 6 to 12 years old.)  and things like Infastructure limits (we are only going to schools with electricty because of sustainability issues.

We decided to target 4th, 5th and 6th graders and I forgot the name of the school we are going to deploy at but I will discuss the school on a future blog. After a short but successful meeting with Robera, we got a tour of the Step-up computer lab. This is the lab where they teach people how to fix computer problems. Elvis is normally instructing these classes. Touring the computer confirmed my beliefs that Step up and OLPC have a lot in common. They both want to bring technology literacy to the island and out partnership is like a match made in heaven.



After that, we took a stroll to the market to get items to cook dinner. (Veggies, rice, etc) As we were passing through one of the sections of the market I said bon dia (good morning in portugese) to an elder woman. She laughed and asked me if i spoke french. so I told her I spoke french in french!!! I find it funny that I have used Ibo, French, Portuguese, and English on this island. Ive even been working on my broken English. It is truly amazing!

So after the market we went to the cafe to discuss the meeting and how we thoguht it went. After that we went back home. Not a big day but still pretty busy.

Oh...So later on Paul came back and discussed with us the idea of having a fourth of July party at the house. This wouldn't be just any fourth of July Party, this would be a fouth of July party where the Prime Minister, the minister of Defense and several important officals of Sao Tome would come to our house to celebrate along with us! This trip keeps getting better and better!


6/23/2009

Nothing much to do today. We were waiting on a phone call from Roberta. She was setting up a meeting for us with the minister of education. She hasn't called. So we played hearts and attempted to play spades. After a while, we had lunch/ and dinner which consisted of Crab and rice. Good stuff. I'm not really a seafood fan but I got a chance to try some crab and it was really good. Taste just like chicken!

I've also decided that on days that I don't have much to talk about, I will blog on a random topic like historical backgrounds of the people that are helping us or more history of the island.

Oh, Paul... I read your comment. We are still trying to figure out the most diplomatic way to distribute the laptops. Step-Up, our partner on island, currently works with about 7 schools. We chose a school from that list . We are still trying to figure out how we pick the kids on an individual basis or even if we are going to be the ones that are picking.

Thats all for now...