I was in Bissau today working on networking issues while Corey spent the day with his head in the clouds. Actually, it was our first cloudy day since arriving, at least until after lunch when the sky cleared. And actually, Corey was working in a small room on the 2nd floor of a tower (which held the water tank on the roof) which had been set aside to hold the 24 batteries and the charging equipment from the solar panels.
It was quite a change from yesterday where I had a quiet day in Lendem. The Bissau translation office is on a very busy street so most windows that face the street are closed to shut out the noise. This picture of the street may look like it is just lined with parked cars but these are actually vehicles trying to make a three lane road out of a two lane one, complete with extra pedestrians, motorbikes and animals.
What's even more impressive is Bissau when the day ends. As we traveled to a place to grab a pizza, the main thoroughfares were crammed with people many times denser than I've ever seen in NYC or any other major city. This place comes to life at dusk! While we've not heard of any disruption because of political unrest, I can certainly see how things could ignite in such an environment.
One of today's projects was to visit the local Internet service provider's (ISP) office and learn what my options were to install the specialized network box (firewall, content filtering, power data collection system) in the office and keep it on line. During my mostly successful attempt Monday, I learned that the ISP was rejecting talking to our box anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days.
What a blessing for me to discover that the man I met with spoke excellent English, making the meeting very productive and relatively short. The center will need to make an upgrade decision in order for us to provide every feature that we desire but, in the meantime, we can provide at least 85% of our plan. I returned to the translation office and reconfigured the network so that our network device will remain online.
The grounds that the translation center is on is co-habited with a couple of other Christian organizations. One is the national council of churches in Guinea-Bissau. They don't have Internet access; the translation office does. The national council approached Estevao about getting a connection to our network from their office on the other side of a courtyard. Estavao agreed to it on several conditions: that the national council purchase all the required parts, that the cable be run in PVC pipe underground (to avoid lightning strikes), and that the council limit their usage to two computers (so that their office didn't overwhelm our Internet capacity).
While Corey went with Francisco to do some electrical shopping, I was asked to go with one of the national council workers to help buy network cable. It was my first experience out on the busy road and using one of the many, many taxis (which are all beat up Mercedes Benz). We could have as many as five passengers crammed in.
Considering how slowly things can happen in Africa, I was really, really surprised to observe them not only buy the cable, but also to PVC pipe and have the 1' deep trench 90% dug by the time I left the center tonight. Now I know what my main project tomorrow is going to be.
Which brings me to an observation about Guinea-Bissau people, and probably most of Africa and other parts of the world. I remember the advertising campaign when I was a little tot to motivate people to not toss trash out their car windows. Any of you remember the image of an American Indian standing along a highway observing trash blowing around and a tear runs down his face?
Everywhere I travel in this country, I find trash surrounding every house, along every road. I was even more surprised with I shared a granola bar Sunday with William while fishing from the bridge. A few minutes later I noticed the wrapper drifting with the tide 30 feet below me.
And while the grounds that the Bissau translation is on is much better than just outside their walls, I am shocked at how much garbage and scrap parts are just laying around.
This lack of care for making things look nice hit me in another way too. The path that the national council workers were going to dig the trench passed through a small grassy area next to a walkway. Earlier today I notice that, apparently years ago, someone planted low shrubs in a way that spelled "Guinea-Bissau". It had not been well cared for since but you could still make out the letters.
Well, the guys dug the trench straight through this shrubbery bed, tearing up some of the "letters". What a shame, I thought. Did they not see what had been done? Even if not, did they even take a moment to consider how to not impact the effort to beautify the center?
Adam and Eve tended the Garden of Eden. And then came the fall.
Here's an example of "dustification" (see two postings ago) This was a car I found on the translation center's compound.
It was quite a change from yesterday where I had a quiet day in Lendem. The Bissau translation office is on a very busy street so most windows that face the street are closed to shut out the noise. This picture of the street may look like it is just lined with parked cars but these are actually vehicles trying to make a three lane road out of a two lane one, complete with extra pedestrians, motorbikes and animals.
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| Click to enlarge |
What's even more impressive is Bissau when the day ends. As we traveled to a place to grab a pizza, the main thoroughfares were crammed with people many times denser than I've ever seen in NYC or any other major city. This place comes to life at dusk! While we've not heard of any disruption because of political unrest, I can certainly see how things could ignite in such an environment.
One of today's projects was to visit the local Internet service provider's (ISP) office and learn what my options were to install the specialized network box (firewall, content filtering, power data collection system) in the office and keep it on line. During my mostly successful attempt Monday, I learned that the ISP was rejecting talking to our box anywhere from a couple of hours to a couple of days.
What a blessing for me to discover that the man I met with spoke excellent English, making the meeting very productive and relatively short. The center will need to make an upgrade decision in order for us to provide every feature that we desire but, in the meantime, we can provide at least 85% of our plan. I returned to the translation office and reconfigured the network so that our network device will remain online.
The grounds that the translation center is on is co-habited with a couple of other Christian organizations. One is the national council of churches in Guinea-Bissau. They don't have Internet access; the translation office does. The national council approached Estevao about getting a connection to our network from their office on the other side of a courtyard. Estavao agreed to it on several conditions: that the national council purchase all the required parts, that the cable be run in PVC pipe underground (to avoid lightning strikes), and that the council limit their usage to two computers (so that their office didn't overwhelm our Internet capacity).
While Corey went with Francisco to do some electrical shopping, I was asked to go with one of the national council workers to help buy network cable. It was my first experience out on the busy road and using one of the many, many taxis (which are all beat up Mercedes Benz). We could have as many as five passengers crammed in.
Considering how slowly things can happen in Africa, I was really, really surprised to observe them not only buy the cable, but also to PVC pipe and have the 1' deep trench 90% dug by the time I left the center tonight. Now I know what my main project tomorrow is going to be.Which brings me to an observation about Guinea-Bissau people, and probably most of Africa and other parts of the world. I remember the advertising campaign when I was a little tot to motivate people to not toss trash out their car windows. Any of you remember the image of an American Indian standing along a highway observing trash blowing around and a tear runs down his face?
Everywhere I travel in this country, I find trash surrounding every house, along every road. I was even more surprised with I shared a granola bar Sunday with William while fishing from the bridge. A few minutes later I noticed the wrapper drifting with the tide 30 feet below me.
And while the grounds that the Bissau translation is on is much better than just outside their walls, I am shocked at how much garbage and scrap parts are just laying around.
This lack of care for making things look nice hit me in another way too. The path that the national council workers were going to dig the trench passed through a small grassy area next to a walkway. Earlier today I notice that, apparently years ago, someone planted low shrubs in a way that spelled "Guinea-Bissau". It had not been well cared for since but you could still make out the letters.
 |
| Now you see them (the letters "G", "U", "I", "N") |
 |
| Now you don't |
Adam and Eve tended the Garden of Eden. And then came the fall.
Here's an example of "dustification" (see two postings ago) This was a car I found on the translation center's compound.
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