Jonathan Field - Maker of Random Stuff

The alarm goes off earlier than I’d like… at 8:30AM. I slept soundly, but I’m still tired and so I make a slow start of it. When I do get up it’s too late to take a shower, so I just dress up, make a quick bite of yogurt with jam and grapenuts. I have the little backpackers house to myself, though a young black lady is cleaning up the kitchen as I come in.

I consider where to put my computer bag before I leave; I decide that it should be safe in the trunk of the car, locked, with an alarm, inside the locked gate of the backpacker’s inn. I don’t think I’m being paranoid; from what I hear theft is extremely common here. It’s hard to feel relaxed when you have something desirable, like a laptop, in a place where theft is so common. I purposely traded laptops with Sophie before coming for this reason… hers is a little more beat up. Still, it’s a super sweet machine and a serious risk.

I walk over to Alan & Donna’s and after a moment they spot me by the gate and come out. I hop in the car, which Alan has already packed, and we’re off. We head straight to a rather far away school. The schools we’ve gone to have been, by local standards, urban. This school is rural.

We drive through some beautiful African plains. Though there is some humidity, it is an arid landscape, mostly golden grass, dotted with distinctively African trees; broadly spread branches and a nearly flat top.

– Grade School

The school itself is on a dirt road, and we bounce along through the ruddy dust for a minute or so. As we pass by the rural homes and outhouses, I wonder what I would do if I was born here. I wonder how even though I think things should be better, I have no viable way to make them better. From the outside as a rich man, nor from an imagined self on the inside. What would I advise them that could actually help? Do they want my help? Or am I projecting disappointment onto them? I ask how society gets started, because I honestly can’t really see how things rise above this state. I mean, I live it every day but it is so take for granted. Where is the wealth of my life coming from? If I were here, I wouldn’t know how to go about creating wealth for myself or for my community. Even with skills, who pays for them? Donna mentions a book called “Guns, Germs, and Steel”, that explores this question. I will have to read it, I am very curious about this now. I feel there has got to be a way to jump start social progress. We just need to figure out what game-theory motivational elements are missing and it should take off for itself, right?

More or less in the middle of nowhere, stands the school. It is surrounded by a perimeter fence with razor wire at the top, to keep out theives. The gate is open at the moment. Goats are wandering around the schoolyard and the outer land as well.

As we pull the car up, a bell sounds. We’ve timed it perfectly to be able to meet with the principal between 10 and 10:30, while the students eat. A sea of black youngsters, K-7, come pouring out of the classrooms and approach what must be a kitchen room at the end of the L shaped brick building. At the kitchen each child is given a steel plate with a pile of white rice and brown beans. Donna mentions that someone stole the plates from a nearby school recently.

Unlike the previous schools we’ve been to, not all of the children are in uniforms. Donna explains that this is a sign of serious poverty for those children. Still, all the kids are dressed and eating, which is more than is happening in some parts of the world.

We meet the principal, who seems young. He wears sunglasses and is dressed in a nice looking blue shirt, black tie, and slacks. I start wondering how the kids see me and Alan, who are almost always dressed in crummy looking jeans and cheap t-shirts, with our unshaven faces.

We go into the computer lab to sit with the principal. The lab is a blank room with the computers, little Mac SEs, dotting a tiny shelf that goes along three sides. The shelf is sagging in areas where there aren’t enough brackets underneath. Also, the shelf is only about sixteen inches deep, so it is just large enough for the tiny mac, but not enough for the keyboard and mouse. So they have little desks in front of each machine for that. Alan tells me that they had these shelves build especially to make this a computer room, but since nobody building it knew what they’d actually need, the result was pretty inadequate. But, here it is, and I don’t want to complain.

There is so much red dust kicking up in the area and blowing through the windows that you can practially write your name on the desks. They do keep trash bags pulled over each machine when not in use, which is a good sign that the school is taking care of itself. Still, it’s amazing that the little machines work so well in this environment.

As we sit to talk with the principal, alan counts six missing computers out of the 20 he expected. He is worried about theft; from the inside or outside. The first thing he asks, though, is for the principal to tell him how the computers are working for them. He stresses that he wants to hear both good and bad news, so that we can improve things. Apparently people are usually too quick to make it sound rosey, which actually prevents the project from improving. The principal understands and says that the children love the computers. The only problem is getting the teachers properly trained, both in using the computers and in knowing how to use them in classes. Donna suggests we come back next week and do a workshop for the teachers, and one for the students with the teachers included. The principal likes this idea and says he can set aside next Thursday.

Then Alan asks about the missing computers, asks where they might be. The principal says there are two broken ones in his office. Alan asks where the other four might be. The principal doesn’t seem to know, but then Donna notices that their records show only seventeen computers placed here. Alan seems relieved, though there is still one missing. We grab the broken machines from the principals office. I notice that he has a pretty fancy looking PC. Alan says he isn’t sure how the school system decides who gets computers, because some of the larger schools administrators don’t have a system as nice as this.

Back in the lab, we start powering up machines to see what works. One has a video problem and two have bad hard drives. Alan instructs me on any unfamiliar repair steps. Replacing the hard drives is easy, as he always brings some freshly set up ones. The screen problem is something that will have to be worked at later, so we just swap that machine out.

He and Donna work on getting the latest educational software on each machine. It’s actually a good bit of trouble because some of the machines have 20MB (megabyte, not gigabyte) hard drives, and there’s barely enough room, so they delete some nonessential stuff. Also, the machines have only floppy drives, so installing new software is pretty slow.

One of the educators comes by with a tray of cookies and juice, a very nice gesture. We snack as we work. A little boy comes in a few times to grab a rag and then return it. Alan asks him if he uses the computers, he smiles and says yes. He says he likes them. Then he leaves again.

As we’re wrapping up, we hear some Zulu singing and clapping. I head over to one of the classrooms where seemingly the whole school is gathered. I peek in and the principal is there by the door. He beckons me in and I enter and stand next to him. The majority of the kids are sitting on chairs and desks clapping and singing. There are about 12 girls up at the front of the room doing a traditional dance. It involves arm waving, and these impressive over-the-shoulder kick-and-stomp actions. The song itself is simple and repetative, but the stomping parts actually feature some complex syncopation, and everyone does a great job of staying in time.

Alan comes in towards the end and we watch until they are done. The principal then introduces us to the class in Zulu; most of the kids this age speak only Zulu; English classes begin only in grade four or so I am told. The kids listen quietly as he tells them we are from America and we are here to help with the computers. They wave at us and we say “hi” and “goodbye” and they echo us.

Outside the principal tells me that they are practicing for a performance they are doing next month: a new mall is opening in the nearby town of Cnutu (remember the C is a *tsk*: CNU-tu). They are going to perform at the grand opening. He says I should come if I can, the girls will be wearing the traditional Zulu garments then.

– High School

We wrap up and head off up the street to the next school. It isn’t far, and it is also on a dirt road that I can’t even see from the main road. But Alan remembers the spot and veers off into the dusty grass.

They tell me as we approach that this is one of their very favorite schools. It started off with the standard assortment of problems, including theft and lack of knowledge and such. But it has really come alive and made remarkable strides in the past two years.

Cases in point: right as we come in the gate a new building is being erected. And since there’s no money for such a thing, it is being built by the local parents. Pulling behind that building, I see that the main courtyard has some flowers and shrubs planted around in a basic attempt at landscaping. There is a section roped off where a gardener is watering and trying to improve the grass. The rest of the courtyard has only scrub-grass tufts and dusty red soil, but they’re trying to improve it. Alan and Donna agree this is because the principal here is a good leader.

We enter the computer lab and there are some girls using machines. One of the girls says as I approach “I love this”. She is playing a connect-the-dot game that teaches counting. Watching her it is obviously too easy for her, but she is enjoying it and that is good. She switches games, and I notice that she does this by rebooting the machine. It reminds me of people in the KY warehouse, how they would often find a way to get something done that was technically the wrong way, but worked. I showed the girl how to quit the games via File -> Quit. She agrees this is a much faster way.

Turns out Alan has already been to this school and the machines are already all working. Though we do replace a blurry monitor. As we move it, we see mouse droppings around the back of the machine. Other than that the lab is pretty clean. All the machines are color Powermacs, and there are probably 30 of them. Donna is teaching some of the teachers in the faculty lab next door.

More kids filter in, and Alan says since there isn’t much I need to do, I can play with the kids. I watch what they’re doing. Mostly they’re playing games that are relatively simple. It is more for fun than real learning. But then again they’re not teaching a class at the moment, this is just recreation. One of the kids is playing a geography game where you match up countries to their shapes.

The kids start realizing that I know how to work the computers, and soon I’ve got several kids asking me to help them. Many of them want to play the geography game but don’t know how to start it up, so I show them, and I try to encourage them to teach other kids how, instead of doing them all myself.

One of the girls knows her math well enough, but has trouble translating it into the computer game; figuring out what the computer is asking her stumps her, but once I help her understand that she always knows the answer right away. It’s a strange thing that shows how applying knowledge in new contexts is not always automatic, and hopefully this kind of exposure will help with that.

When I raise the difficulty on the geography game so that you have to know the name of the country on the map, I am surprised that many of the kids have a hard time even finding South Africa, Lesotho, or Swaziland on the map. There’s definitely a lack of geography going on. Or perhaps it’s just the context of the computer game again, that’s making it harder. I shouldn’t talk; I couldn’t fill in a map of Africa either; as an earlier post suggests. *cough* Senegal *cough*

Eventually the kids are called out for the end of the day prayer. They gather into a perfect square (that’s the ambitious principal in the forground), sing a Zulu song, and then sing the Lord’s Prayer. This culture has it’s music down: I could hardly imagine a high school class singing in time and on tune before.

Most of the kids leave, but grades 11 and 12 have to stay for some extra study. Alan and I go in to see how Donna is doing. She is wrapping up training a new teacher. The faculty room has another seven Power Macs and a pair of Imagewriters, and they are heavily used, moreso than in many of the urban schools. Alan points out that it is one of the only schools where they don’t have some kind of software locking on the desktop — the teachers have full access to the machines, and it hasn’t been a problem here.

Donna is also showing people how to better organize their files. Most of the machines just have all the files spread out on the desktop. One fellow, to keep all his stuff together, has taken to writing every word processing document in a single file, and then just printing, say, page 10, when he is done. The file has grown huge. Donna teaches him about seperate files and folders. But I find this kind of inventiveness on the part of non-technical people charming.

As we’re waiting for Donna, Alan pops out LOGO, which he had installed on these machines. It turned out to be too advanced and not very practical, so it isn’t used by any of the schools, but we poke around on it a bit for fun and old time’s sake. The commands slowly come back to me, with Alan’s help… FD 10, RT90 PU PD… I recreate my first big logo program, which creates an 8 ball. It’s fun.

We have a very light lunch: bread and water and an apple. Alan and Donna eat about 1/5 of what people (including me) eat back home. I rarely find myself any more hungry than I was at home, though. I guess I’ll lose a lot of weight. Or maybe the body just digests differently when you give it less. Donna and Alan are thin and healthy, they’re not wasting away.

We drive back to Dundee. I’m feeling kind of tired, and hope for more sleep tonight.

Back at their place, we unload the car, and then we visit with Pepe, the landlord’s African Grey parrot, who stays in a little storage room near the house. There is also a Macaw, but the Macaw is, unsurprisingly, very agressive. The Grey is very mellow and friendly, like most Grey’s I’ve met. He (she?) has a bright red tail. Do all African Grey’s have that? We whistle with it and pet it a bit through the cage. It seems pretty lonely and we consider getting it some toys later.

We go back to the house and sit down. I take out the guitar and sit on the front porch. The sunset is beginning and it’s a beautiful night. The air is cooling now, and there are just about no flying pests. Alan and Donna go to run some errands and I sit on the porch for half an hour and play and sing lightly until it is just about dark and they have returned. As Donna prepares dinner, we discuss the possibility of watching movies… I have the DVD player on my laptop. I’ve also brought a few movies; like Blood Diamond, which they want to see. We plan to do something like that Saturday night, when there isn’t much else to do. We’ll probably invite over Tabani and maybe some others.

Then we eat: chard cooked with garlic, some more hoppin’john, and a little tomato and cucumber. We plan to meet at 9:15 the next day, though they’ll actually be doing some work earlier. I walk over to my place, Alan accompanies me halfway. I pay my first week’s rent and use George’s computer for 30 minutes. It’s barely enough time to download PuTTY and answer a couple of Sophie’s messages. I miss her and though I’m wary of her safety if she comes (particularly if she is using her big camera), I think this would be an amazing experience for her.

I head off to write, then take a shower, and I’m in bed before 11. But then I watch some of Tae Guk Gi and Blood Diamond before I go to bed, so I’m pretty tired the next morning.