Grime and Dust, Grime and Dust

Today was our trip to the capital, Bissau, to scope out the work to be done at the translation center there. Actually, the center is used by two organizations, the national church council and SIL. That in itself adds complications on who decides what work gets done, how it gets paid for, and who decides how, in this specific instance, the network and power systems are managed.

We left at 9:30 am and drove just over an hour into the city. Most of the trip was on open road, periodically driving by a few mud brick homes (with thatch or tin roofs) and twice through small towns with many more people walking around.

We drove past the airport we had arrived at 3 am on Monday and I was now able to confirm how small and simple a building it is. We finally road on a 3-lane each way into the city but it shortly ended at a roundabout that then went down to a single lane each way (at best).

The bottom line is that, as we drove around with the director as he shopped for construction materials and for some repair parts that Corey needed, I got a big taste for what Bissau is like. I never, never saw the ocean, even though it is on the ocean. In fact, the closest I saw of salt water was a wide inlet from a toll bridge we drove across 17 km outside the city.

What the city was like, however, is dust. There is dust on the sides of the road. There is dust on the people walking or sitting along the roads. There is dust on all vehicles. There is dust in the air. And it was on me and in me. Mix that with the smell of diesel engines and burning whatever that you'll find foreign countries. Can you empathize? And then there is the constant noise of people talking and vehicles moving.

That all aside and in the past (because I took a shower after we got home at 10:15 pm and because this is the place where God wants me to be right now), God blessed us with much good news.

First, a network device (specifically a security firewall we call "IPCop"), which we had sent over last year but didn't get installed, seemed to have disappeared several months ago. Where was it? We found it sitting on the shelf in the Bissau office. Was it broken or working? We plugged it in, turned it on, and found that it was working just as we wanted it to.

The other major problem we'd had last year was working with the Internet company in Bissau, called "Orange". They had installed special equipment in the office a couple of years ago and no one last year seemed to be able to get our equipment to work with theirs. I was convinced I could get the answer if I could talk to their technical team.

God provided a person at the center who had spent two years in England learning English. We grabbed him and went to see Orange. The second blessing was that the technician (Herman), who had spoken Portuguese for the first 10 minutes, all of a sudden stopped talking to the other guy and began talking to me in English!! The bottom line is that we have enough detailed information, freely provided by Herman, two different ways we believe will get our IPCop onto the internet and function as designed.

Corey spent time looking over the power systems (both solar and generator) and, though there is lots of work yet to be done, believes he has enough time to get the work done. If my network jobs get done quickly, as I now hope will be the case, I can be Watson to his Sherlock.

Isn't God good? Actually, he's also great!

Now that we're back in Lendem, I will work to get the exterior wireless permanently mounted on the building and then install the final wireless device in the main office. Corey needs to abandon me (just kidding) and get on to his power projects here in Lendem.

Once again, it's midnight before we get to bed but are looking forward to tomorrow.

Are you?

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