On Wildlife

Notes on Wildlife:

-Sometimes the cock gets confused and crows at 9:18...   PM.

-Sometimes the "bug" on the window 3 feet behind you is really a lizard on the wall 20 yards behind the window

-Goats waste a lot of energy running around and baaaa'ing at absolutely nothing.  It's a good thing that there are plenty of giant smoldering mounds of waste around for them to juice back up on.

-Everything may be bigger in Texas, but insects are biggest in Africa.

-They may be far more comfortable in the sweltering heat, but buyer beware, there is a direct relationship between an insect's size/creepiness, and its interest in running up your shorts. 

The variable scale of "community outreach"

10:45 AM GMT: I boarded a bus full of 30 of Nigeria's most privileged 18-23 yr olds on a journey to The REMI school for special needs children where many were having their first taste of community service work.   They were on a mission to both broaden their horizons and to improve the image of the University in the community.  I was on a mission to recruit a few promising undergrads to assist in our project.  This was to be a 90 minute venture during which university students were to read with 4-6th graders of the REMI school.

On the ride over, Kelly Jo (the University Outreach/PR Coordinator) reminded the students that the REMI school is largely devoted to educating children with disabilities, and that the undergrads should be prepared and act appropriately.

No one was prepared for the moment of truth when we arrived.  Due to a miscommunication with the REMI school staff, we were greeted by a line of 40 expectant REMI students who were all deaf.  Conveniently (for her), Kelly Jo is fluent in the American Sign Language that the REMI students study at the school.  The idea of reading with deaf children left the undergrads dead in their tracks.  I was baffled as well.  

The first couple of minutes were spent with introductions, and then we were off.  The REMI students were reading our lips, and teaching US the alphabet.  I can now effectively sign all but 4 letters of it--"f", "k", q, and "x".

About 15 minutes in the rest of the 4-6 graders (who were not hard of hearing) joined us, and some students read with groups of them.

After the reading, We heard, "I love you, you love me" as performed by a group of REMI students with the daughter of the university founder, recent Vice President of Nigeria, Atiku Abubakar--she was one of the undergrads on the tour.  The head teacher for the deaf students gave a short presentation as well (he was deaf, but could speak english) followed by a song and dance by the head teacher and some of the older boys.  The visit concluded with a final rendition of the original song by everyone involved, and a promise to return again at the same time next week.

The lessons learned on the trip were well paraphrased by two separate statements I heard on the ride back.

"Deaf kids are not dumb." 

and

"We weren't teaching them, this time they were teaching us."

3:00 PM GMT: Robin Sanders, the American Ambassador to Nigeria give a talk on democracy's role in America and the future of Nigeria this afternoon to most of the 1000 students at the University.  Her credentials were long and impressive, perhaps most notably in today's context, she is an African American Woman.  She was at the University to speak about Democracy, the American Electoral Process, her observations of Nigeria's recent elections, and the current presidential race in the US.

She spoke about transparency in the election process (and the lack thereof here in Nigeria, where it is generally recognized by most people that I speak with that the previous election's outcome did not reflect the reality of the public's voting choices), and how we have worked for hundreds of years in the United States to try to achieve it in our process.  She also spoke about how this year's US elections include the most diverse ticket in history, giving variety in age, gender, and race.

Before  the speakers took the podium, we were all handed a state department brochure explaining to foreigners what it is that America stands for, and how it might differ from other places.  It was kind of surreal to be surrounded by people who had a real interest in a hand out that was advertising America like a product.

Definitely an eye-opening day.

Old dogs, New Tricks

10:00 AM GMT:  This morning I had my first official Hausa lesson here in Nigeria.  I met my lovely malama (teacher) Safratu at the Cathedral school in Jimeta which is the target academy for our project.  Conveniently, she lives just 5 minutes behind the campus.  

My quick synopsis of the differentiators in learning Hausa as compared to learning romantic languages:

  -The roots of the language are a mixture of both West African Tribal languages and Arabic 

  -The grammer, declension, and tenses are fairly straightforward, making the language seem relatively easy to learn (at first). 

  -Glottal stops are common throughout the language (or example, the break separating the syllables of the interjection uh-oh.  Thanks wikipedia.) 

  -Many concepts are expressed with multi-word combinations derived from colloquialisms.  So, a mushroom, for instance, is commonly referred to as "Lemar Kwado".  This translates directly to "Frog's Umbrella."  

  - The most difficult aspect - many words have completely different or conflicting meanings depending upon the context in which they are used.  This reminds me of Tonal languages like Thai or Cantonese, given that Westerners aren't used to attributing tones with altered word definitions.  Here though, there isn't even a tonal difference to pick up on.  For instance, "kwado" can mean either "frog" or "padlock," only the context of the sentence(s) surrounding the word dictates which is being used to the listener.  This gets much more difficult with short words like "ya" which have 4 or 5 different meanings, and often represent the introductory sound in many other words as well...

Thankfully, I've received a small amount of tutoring in the US, and I've been working to converse with the locals for a week or so now, so I have a tiny frame of reference built up in which to integrate my "wrote" learning.

2:00 PM GMT: In the early afternoon met with Chairman (of the Jimeta Academy School Board) Kadala.  Mr. Kadala is a recently retired Civil Servant (he was an educationalist) who has recently accepted the role of "Project Coordinator" for our laptop initiative.  He will be the project's main point of contact here in Yola.  He already possesses 3 out of 4 of the necessary qualifications for successfully championing a project of this nature.

1)  An understanding of the regular operations of schools as institutions

2) Sufficient free time in his schedule to devote to the project

3) The authority to reprioritize the schedules of other people involved (The school Principal, Teachers, Members of the LCCN Church who have electrical, IT, and Mechanical skills, etc.)

However, he is lacking in a critical 4th.  He is baffled by computers, which will make him very difficult to contact from both Denmark and the US.  If this project is to be successful, we need to be in nearly daily contact from continents away, and the telephone is too expensive, unreliable, and insuffient for the transmission of documents of any kind.

This afternoon, I gave Mr. Kadala his first lesson in the basic use of a computer.  He can now manage multiple windows, find and open internet explorer, navigate to his yahoo email account, open emails, identify spam, and download attachments.  Not bad for 2.5 hours with no experience or typing skills!  By the end of the meeting he was excited by his progress and thanked me for helping him to conquer his fear of the machine.  More specifically, he found in his previous short lived attempts that the computer offered an overwhelming amount of information.  Understanding some of the basic organizational concepts helped him to put the information in it's place.

My lessons will continue tomorrow afternoon, Chairman Kadala's Saturday morning.

Bhatura ina son a koyo Hausa, Don Chairman son a koyo Na'ura mai kwakaluwa

(This white man wants to learn Hausa, Respected Chairman wants to learn Machine with Brain)

Meeting Bishop Edward Ishaya of the Yola Diocese

This morning we finally met with Bishop Edward Ishaya of the local Diocese in Yola where we are staying.  Mr. Ishaya had been in South Africa during our previous trip finishing his PhD.  The Bishop; Mr. Kadala, Chairman of the of the School Board for the Primary Academy of Jimeta; and Mr. Shambirna'ah, the Principal of said Academy.  For the folks back in Massachusetts, Jimeta is to Yola as Cambridge is to Boston in that it's part of the greater Boston area, they are intimately connected, but outsiders generally consider the entire area "Yola."

After a few minutes of discussion The Bishop was quite interested in the project and pledging his full support in helping us obtain accesses to human resources within the church community as well as financial.

This was great news, and the final piece necessary for our current work.  There is still money to be raised by Mission Afrika (from the private sector in Denmark), but we have a few months yet to secure it.

Proof of support was delivered immediately.  Within 2 hours a young man named Bulus who we had met briefly in June at the Arch Diocese in Numan (a few trechorous hours outside of town) was knocking on the office door wondering why the Bishop had requested his attendence.  Upon recognizing us he was quick to put the pieces together for himself.

Bulus is a long time church member who received his scholarship from the LCCN Church and has provided IT and Mechanical Engineering Support to them for over 10 years.  He had recently left to work for MTN, one of the 3 major Mobile phone service providers in Nigeria.  Mobiles are HUGE business here.  The Bishop was disappointed that he was no longer employeed in service to the church, but of course understood that a young man needs to follow his ambition.

After discussing our plans with Bulus he quickly called his friend Nathan, also a long-time member of the LCCN in Numen.  Nathan, very conveniently, received his official SolarPower Installation Certificate not 2 weeks ago after years of schooling in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering.

We arranged to meet him tomorrow to go over the schematic that I had tentatively put together.  

How does one get to Yola exactly?

Wednesday Sept 17th - 10:30 AM ET: I receive an email from my colleague Carsten from the Danish Missionary Organization, "Mission Africa" (formerly "Sudan Mission) stating that we have received funding for our pilot project!

Monday, September 22nd: I submit my payment and pre-application for a Visa covering the trip to the website of the Nigerian Embassy. This begins one of the most frustrating processes of my 27 year long life: Tracking down the unpublished support email address for the 3rd party technical support at socketworksglobal who handle online transactions for the Nigerian Government, countless useless emails are passed back and forth between socketworks and myself (perhaps not entirely useless, because they convince me to pay my visa pre-application fee to the Govt TWICE during this process) fruitless phone calls to overflowing voicemail boxes at the Embassy (as well as random extension dials in vain attempts to reach a live person), paying a Visa expedite fee, paying a 3rd party professional (Duke Brobee of "Duke's Visa Service", recommended by the travel agent of Lutheran Missionaries based out of Minneapolis) to hand carry my paperwork to the Embassy in D.C., paying to overnight that paperwork to and back from said professional, and paying said professional's expediting fee.

Tuesday Oct 7th: 1:00 PM ET:
I call Duke, my Mercenary Visa Procurement Specialist Extraordinaire in D.C.
to receive the final Verdict. After 16 days teeth nashing, head banging and nail biting, I had finally been
granted a Multiple Entry Tourist Visa for the grandest nation on the African continent.

Tuesday Oct 7th - 1:30 PM (30 minutes later): Visa is on the way, time to buy a ticket...

All of the cheap flights "to Abuja" went to Lagos via a major
international carrier, but would require that I switch to Virgin
Nigeria to get from Lagos to Abuja. This included a 10 km drive
between airport terminals in an unfamiliar city with a reputation as
being quite dangerous for foreigners. All of my contacts in country
very strongly discouraged me from going that route on such short
notice, because they probably wouldn't be able to find me a
trustworthy driver and/or a place to stay (in case the flight from
Lagos to Abuja was delayed or canceled).

When it became clear that not only would the drive between terminals have to be made, but that an overnight in Lagos would be required as well (Virgin Nigeria wasn't running any of it's late day flights this week from Lagos to Abuja), I opted to pay the extra dollars to fly British Airways. They had the only direct flights from Europe to the capital city of Abuja, where I have friends who have friends that could help me navigate the situation, and find me a place to stay for the evening if anything didn't go as planned (in Nigeria, nearly nothing goes as
planned, ever.)

After British Airways refused to process my card to purchase the ticket online because I didn't have a "Verified By Visa" account linked up with my Capital One "No Hassle" Visa Card, I attempted to sign up for Verified by Visa. When this process failed repeatedly I was directed to call a helpline at Capital One where a woman told me that they no longer accept applications for the service, but that I could call customer service to complain or get more details if I wanted. Why isn't a robot doing this woman's job? Catch 22. So, I called British Airways to see if I
could purchase over the phone. They tell me that Verified by Visaisn't really my problem here, it's purchasing a ticket to Abuja with a credit card. Abuja has made their "Comten" list of destination cities. This means that the rate of credit card fraud occurring in purchases of tickets to this destination is high enough that tickets must be purchased in person.

The woman on the line was nice enough to "hold" a ticket for me at the gate for Thursday morning, I'd just have to purchase it day of.

Wednesday Oct 8th - 9:37 AM ET: Fedex rings my doorbell and drops off an express mail envelope containing my Visa. Thank you Duke for making perfect use of my pre-paid self-addressed Express Envelope.

I close down my business, pack, and prepare frantically until 3:30 AM Thursday morning.

Thursday Oct 9th - 6:00 AM: Cab picks me up at 10 Moore St, destination Logan Airport

Thursday Oct 9th - 8:20 AM: We take off for Heathrow Airport, London!

Thursday Oct 9th - 10:15 PM GMT: We leave London for Abuja

Friday Oct 10th - 4:20 AM GMT: Arrive in Abuja - David Attah (whom I have never met) and his
unnamed friend pick me up at the international terminal and bring me to the domestic terminal 20 minutes away.
David waits with me until the airport opens around 7:00 AM, and helps me find the ticket purchasing office for Arik Airlines, which is far more difficult than it ought to be.

Friday Oct 10th - 5:00 PM GMT: My flight from Abuja to Yola (capital of Adamawa state, and the city where I'll be headquartered for the trip) is delayed approx 2 hours.

Friday Oct 10th - 9:00 PM GMT: Approximately 60 hours after getting word that my Visa was approved and 32 hours after departing from Boston I arrive in Yola where Carsten and Zwriglee pick me up and bring me back to our accommodations at the American University of Nigeria.

Day 1 - Monday June 2nd, 2008

We met up at Amsterdam Airport Schiphol with a 3 hour layover. I was in from Logan International in Boston, MA, and Carsten and Anders arrived an hour or so later from Aarhus, Denmark.

We spent an hour and a half together which allowed Carsten and I to have our first face-to-face conversation.

Up until this point, the entirety of our meager interaction had been via the project's web-based collaboration utility hosted at olpc.ourhoist.com.

I had met Anders at a week long One Laptop Per Child (OLPC) deployment conference a few months previous and taken an immediate liking to his then unfinished project proposal.

I had been volunteering a bit on the support gang at OLPC trying to dig up opportunities to get involved with laptop deployments for a couple of months by the time the conference rolled around. I was having trouble finding an advertised (publicly available) deployment strategy (roadmap to success) tailored to governments (or NGO's) that were interested in purchasing the laptops. Ander's project proposed a pilot deployment at a small Lutheran school to be conducted in conjunction with a New Media Studies department of The American University of Nigeria which had opened its doors in Yola in 2005.

There was a professor at the University who was interested in the project and he told us that AUN was well equipped to help us document via video, audio, interviews, etc. the entire process of bringing the laptops through customs, retraining teachers to prepare them for the new constructivist learning model that the XO laptops were designed to facilitate, find and implement reliable sources of power and internet connectivity, deal with technical support, misplacement, and upgrade issues, etc.

Essentially, we were going to run a small scale pilot deployment project and document the entire process via rich media in an attempt to build what I had been trying to find internally at OLPC since I began volunteering for them; a prospect facing deployment roadmap.

It seemed that there were people within the organization who new what the roadmap to success would or should look like, but the information was spread out throughout the organization, and it certainly wasn't readily available to potential buyers.

I have learned in my years of software deployment experience that it's very difficult to convince a sophisticated buyer to purchase your product if you can't show them a plan for making your product actually work for them. This seemed like a great opportunity to get involved with building just that.

I was raring to go.