We’re going to Enyanyeni school today, to do major surgery. We want to add software to all the machines, but the software is too large to be installed by stiffy. So the plan is to replace all the hard drives with fresh ones which Alan has created. There are probably about 25-30 machines.
At 8:30AM Donna, Alan, and Zenzo pull up out front. I’m about to go to the car but Alan comes in instead. He wants to give the couple that I met last night directions to the school if they’d like to visit. They are already up as well, getting ready for their battlefield tour. But conveniently Enyanyeni school is on the way so they say they’ll try to stop by.
We head over and Matthew the principal is already there. He opens up the lab for us and Donna starts looking over the machines for anything we should save. Meanwhile, Zenzo, Alan and I use some pins to tack the wiring that Alan installed a few weeks ago against the exterior wall. After we’re done it looks much neater.
Then we dig in replacing the hard drives. There are two different kinds of machines which require different mounting brackets, so a lot of shuffling of screws and mounting brackets ensues. Zenzo and I become aces with the screwdriver. After a bit, Alan recruits Zenzo to do some install some extra outlets along the existing wire while I continue with the drives.
About an hour in the couple does indeed stop by to see what we’re doing. They check out the facilities, which are fairly nice for a rural school, and have a chat with the principal, Donna, and Alan. The principal even gives them a little tour of the place. They seem to enjoy it, and spend about 30 minutes before heading back out to their battlefield tour.
Alan has a machine off to the side that is copying fresh hard drives as fast as I install them. For some reason he starts running into a host of odd behavior. Some drives report errors but then work fine, some fresh drives without errors fail to work after being installed. Nothing that stops the show, but that we’re able to figure out either. We figure that there might be something wrong with the cables he’s using, but we make it through anyways.
When the drives are installed we break for lunch: sardines, bread, and carrots. Then we dig into configuring software: the drives are freshly installed with as much stuff configured as possible, but then there’s a fairly complicated 10 minute process actually doing the final setup on each machine. Between the four of us, we manage to get them all done by 5PM. It’s a pretty long day for a vacation!
On the way back home we stop by the department of labor. Zenzo has good word of a job that might be available at the hospital and he’s going to apply. We get there at about 5:01, and the place closes at 5PM. I run up to the door anyways to check, and indeed they haven’t locked it yet. I come in and two ladies are sitting talking. “Are you closed?” I ask. “Yes,” they reply. “I just need a form,” I say. “Which form?” they ask, and I wave for Zenzo to come in. He runs over from the car and they exchange a quick Zulu chat which results in the correct form. I thank them and we get in the car.
As we’re about to drive away one of the ladies sticks her head out and says, with a notable edge of annoyance, “We were closed you know! I did you a big favor!” I thank her again as we drive off, and we wonder at how put out she seemed.
Zenzo and I get dropped off at my place, because I have a chess game for him. He had mentioned that he wished he had one, so I downloaded a free one from online and put it on a stiffy just the other day. He brings in his laptop and we try to install it. However he doesn’t have an unzip program, so we’re unable to get it going. I look online and find an unzip program, which I download to my computer, but now we need Alan’s stiffy drive to transfer it, and they’re out and about for a little while longer.
So we hang out. I show him several of the pictures I’ve taken. He seems to like them. I’m online so I show him the blog, his poem online, and my mom’s comments about his poem. He laughs and seems flattered. I show him a picture of Sophie. “Wow, she is beautiful,” he says. “That’s why I married her,” I joke. “If you hadn’t married her,” he says back, “I would tell you ‘marry that girl’”.
Then we take a peek at Wikipedia; I tell him how any time I have a random question about something, I just look it up here and usually get a good amount of information. I pull up Jacob Zuma’s article as an example. “Jay-Zed!” he exclaims as soon as he sees the picture. Zuma was the highest ranking Zulu in the country, as deputy president. He lost his post after some serious scandals. He is very popular with the Zulus, however.
I ask if he wants to look anyone up. He asks if they’d have a page on Beyonce. So I pull her up and we look over her write-up, and of course, her photo. Then I show that it goes beyond people; we do a quick look at the article for South Africa and for lions.
We talk about how he might get internet access. It would actually be terribly expensive — dial-up access is only 80 rand per month, but even local calls here are charged by the minute, and it’s not that cheap. On top of that they don’t even have a phone line at their house, so they’d have to pay for installation first. And using cell based access like mine would be even more expensive.
We have a little while left before Alan & Donna are back, so he shows me how to play solitaire on his computer. I haven’t played solitaire since I was a kid, and I’ve never played it on the computer. He teaches me the basics and we play a couple rounds. When he plays he completes the game. Then I play twice and hit a dead end both times. I don’t know the game well enough to know how much of that is luck and how much is skill.
I call Donna and they’re back, so we head to the trailer and install the unzip program and get chess working on his laptop. It’s a decent little chess game with customizable appearance and skill settings and such. We put it on the absolutely easiest setting and play twice; mostly him but with me giving some coaching. We get killed both times, but the second time it at least takes the computer a little longer.
Donna has prepared a lovely veggie curry, which the four of us enjoy. Then we put on the radio serial drama. I think it’s called “Black & White Story” by someone named Blackburn. It’s about the mining industry in South Africa almost a century ago and focuses on white fear, corruption, and exploitation of the blacks. It is a sadly realistic story. I believe the story was written long ago, around when these things happened. And it is interesting that some people like the author, already knew that what was going on was very wrong. So when I hear that it’s not fair to judge those in the past out of context, I remind myself that others in that same context still knew right from wrong.
I drive Zenzo home. On the way I ask him about the job he is applying for at the hospital. He says it is for “general orderly”, and he’ll be cleaning and changing sheets on the beds. He shrugs, as if to say it’s better than nothing. I tell him that I had the exact same job when I was eighteen: I worked at Norwood hospital mopping floors, cleaning bathrooms, and making beds. I did it for a little over a year. I tell him that it’s a perfectly respectable job. I think, but I’m not sure, that he feels a little better about it.
I ask how much he’ll be making, and he believes it will be about 3000 rand per month, which is actually very good pay for this area, as far as I can tell. It’s about $425 when directly converted, but after taking into account how inexpensive many things are, it’s probably closer to around $800. I sure hope he gets the job, and that he is able to be reasonably happy keeping it for at least a while.
After I drop him off I head home. I check my email, and I’ve received one that sets me up for another sleepless night. There’s been a small scale drama involving a friend of mine back home; a marriage that went sour, and possibly some domestic violence. I spend the much of the night fretting about how to respond.