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Lights out [2014-11-01]

We’re sitting here on a Saturday morning at the school in Musoma, waiting and hoping for the return of electricity so we can tidy up a few last things before leaving.  Yesterday marked the official completion of the Reneal IEO 2014 projects, as we conducted teacher orientation trainings for the teachers at Paroma.  Tomorrow we will return to Arusha.  It’s hard to believe it was only a week ago today that we began our trip here to Musoma– what a myriad of experiences we’ve had, both work and fun.

The trip from Arusha to Musoma was by land, since we were carrying an entire computer lab-worth of equipment plus our personal gear.  Our colleague Fiona had coordinated the logistics, using her extensive set of connections to help us get from there to here.  We are so grateful to the Members of Parliament from Arusha, the Serengeti, and Musoma for their generous assistance!

Our journey took us past Ngorongoro Crater and through Serengeti National Park.  These are amazing, awe-inspiring international treasures.  Words and even pictures cannot really capture the majesty and wonder of these places, with thousands of animals roaming freely in their natural habitat.  We saw so many things in our travel through the parks and hope that we can return someday with more time to spend.

We arrived in Musoma on Monday afternoon.  We didn’t get much accomplished Monday, but it was extremely satisfying to us to get the final batch of equipment delivered to its destination.  After thousands of kilometers of travel, by airplane and then by bumpy dirt roads, all of the boxes got to where they needed to go.  Whew!

Tuesday morning we arrived back at the school refreshed and eager to begin the installation.  Lots of hands were there to unpack and set out equipment, and we had a full head of steam going when suddenly the lights went out.  Uh oh.  Turned out it was a full day power outage.  Thankfully we had a local computer store owner who came to help out with the cabling, as well as the great IT teacher Mr. Juma, so at least we got a big piece of work done even without power.  By the end of Tuesday, everything was in place to get started with testing on Wednesday.  We went back to the guest house very happy and excited, ready for “first light” for all of the computers the next morning.

We weren’t so sanguine on Wednesday when the power went out yet again early in the morning. The school officials scrambled and got a small generator for us to use, so at least we were able to do the memory tests on the laptops (two at a time).  We went back to the guest house midday and were standing by to return to the school when power returned, to work until whenever we needed to in order to get our Day 2 work done.  Thank goodness the power returned about 2:30, and we were back at the school by 3:30 to continue testing. 

Thursday was blissfully free of electricity problems, so Neal and Mr. Juma got to spend lots of time together discussing the server and its maintenance.  Another highlight of Thursday was having each class of students come to visit the new computer lab, with a little bit of hands-on time for each student.  What a thrill to have this well-traveled equipment finally touched by the kids!  They did great, and we loved seeing how hard it was for the teachers to tear the kids away from their computer activities.  That’s what it’s all about!!!  Friday we had two sessions of orientation training for the teachers, which also went very well.  The teachers are eager to learn and use the resources found on the server.  Even though the school doesn’t have internet, there are so many things for them to explore and use!

So now that the 2014 installations are finished, we will head back to Arusha.  We will make final visits to the 2013 and 2014 schools there this week, and we also plan to formalize the collaboration agreement between Reneal IEO, Arusha Node Marie, Habari Node Ltd, and the Arusha District Council office.  Friday we begin the trip back to America.  Already our thoughts are turning to 2015… There are software upgrades, updates to the manual, equipment to ship to the Philippines, and of course crafting the 2015 plan for Tanzania.  The biggest need for Tanzania in 2015 is donations of used laptops; please check the “How to Help” page for information on minimum specifications!