(from Tuesday, no Internet until now) Yesterday morning, Robert told me, "I will fix the electricity today. I will look at the solar and will charge with the generator." I nodded my head with an eager smile. Off he went up to the round house, with my multi-tool in his hand. Earlier I watched him fix a portable DVD player with that same tool, which really impressed me. Robert will be our Matènwa XO repair person, no doubt. Electricity is a real issue, even in this school with pretty good power. The 40 extra laptops have had a strong impact...
Video : Days 2 and 3 : First Classes Tue, 6-Apr-2010 (teefal)
Day 9) Digging Deep Tue, 6-Apr-2010 (teefal)
(from last Wednesday) Some days are tougher than others. Pilots start with smiles all around. Kids are happy; adults are happy. What an opportunity, what a great group! About a week in, it's all about endurance. With a compressed schedule, without much break, the good feelings get replaced with hard work. Everyone's still enthused, but setbacks and exhaustion and doubt become more obvious. It happens in every pilot. Cheerleading and encouragement are critical to success, perhaps the most important task of all. Even if you've got nothing left in the gas tank, you've got to dig inside and find a...
Day 10) Passion and Praise Thu, 8-Apr-2010 (teefal)
(from last Thursday) Ten days in and I've settled into a routine. Wake with the roosters, use the latrine, try for some Internet in the library, charge my laptop while I blog and review photos, talk with Bill and Beth. Not one to wear a watch, I've pretty much forgotten about time. I sometimes skip lunch, so Janose brings it to the round house for me and Bill. Thank you Janose! Lunch is an important meal in Haiti, more important than dinner. The school blows a conch shell at the end of the day, which is my signal to start...
Day 11) Waiting for your voice Thu, 8-Apr-2010 (teefal)
(from last Friday) Up early for more screencasts with Benaja, we couldn't get past the Final Cut editing problems. Bill spent some time on it and got things moving quickly again, but now their wasn't enough time to render the screencasts for the mentors, which was our overall goal. Michena was to teach one lesson, Lionel another. Roll with it . . . Michena could watch the screencasts on my computer in Final Cut, which meant that Benaja and I couldn't continue our morning screencast work. Lionel confided in Bill that he felt uncomfortable teaching Lesson 8 (tests). After watching...
Day 12) Last Circle Thu, 8-Apr-2010 (teefal)
(from last Saturday) I'm sitting in the treehouse for the last time. My luggage is in the truck that will bring us to the beach airstrip where our tiny plane will fly us to Port-Au-Prince. We have two extra passengers, Benaja and Joseph, so whether all of us and our luggage will fit is a open question. We may need two flights. Looking around this panoramic view of Lagonav at the mountains and the mainland in the distance, I'm feeling exhausted and exhilarated. There's a real sense that something big has started. The mentors met once last time in the...
Video: Fallen Darbonne Schools Fri, 9-Apr-2010 (teefal)
Here's a video by John Engle of the four fallen schools in Darbonne, the earthquake's epicenter. Children from each of these schools will be in our two Darbonne pilots....
Day 13) How to Turn 24 in Haiti Mon, 12-Apr-2010 (beth)
(from Sunday the 4th) Nail polish. Definitely the best thing to bring on this trip. After getting up early to paint the finger and toenails of John Engle's daughter, Layla, it looks like we have successfully painted the nails of nearly all the women of the Engle household. Next to our laptop program, I think painting the toenails of as many women is possible is another goal of my time here. I wish I could say this is a joke because it seems very shallow. But when you see the look on the faces of the little girls who suddenly...
Day 14) Easter Sunday and Such Mon, 12-Apr-2010 (beth)
(from last Monday) Happy Easter! No news to report today. We all sat around and relaxed while the computers were safely locked away in some place in Port-au-Prince that we couldn't access during the holidays. I spent much of my time checking in with family, blogging on the travel magazine that I started up, Go Girl (www.travelgogirl.com, to put in a plug) and, of course, playing with John Engle's two adorable kids, Daniel and Layla. In the morning, I whipped out my bubbles and nail polish and opened up my playground/salon. Couldn't have gone better. Also opened up the book,...
Day 15) Steps Back, Steps Forward Mon, 12-Apr-2010 (beth)
(from Tuesday) Here's the sleep count from last night: Benaja: 6 hours (1:30am-7:30am) Beth: 4 hours (4:00am-8am) Bill: 3 hours (4:30am-7:30am, but, according to Bill, did not actually start moving until about 8:45am). And here's what we pulled from triage: Computers that are totally screwed up and perhaps helpless: 8 Computers that won't turn on (thinking it's a clock problem): 44 Computers that are happy and ready to be used: 56 Putting us at a total of 108 computers that we'll be taking to Darbonne and Petite Riviere des Nippes these next two weeks. Let's just say that Bill and...
Day 16) The Last House Standing Mon, 12-Apr-2010 (beth)
(from Wednesday) Next to Joseph's family's house in Darbonne (Leogane) there is an equally large wooden shack with a tin roof. It was quickly built two weeks ago when the family returned to their plot of land after living in a tent community after the earthquake. The original house is a beautiful cement building with white window gratings and sheer curtains that sway in the breeze. It is calm and, besides the curtains, unmoving. In this sense, its mere existence puts a new twist on the recent reality TV shows like “Survivor” and “Last Comic Standing”. For this, with near...
Day 17) Motorcycle Mama Mon, 12-Apr-2010 (beth)
(from Thursday) BEEEP BEEEEEEEEPPPPP!!! Motorcycles riding three, four, five people scoot by as we walk towards town to class. As they turn corners they honk loudly. We greet people as we walk by and they smile at us. “Bonjou,” we say as we step over piles of rubble, the remains of people's houses, stores. Darbonne is a town but sometimes it feels more rural. I suppose that's what happens when you lose a lot of the buildings you used to have. Yesterday was our first Etoys lesson. We started as one large group of students and talked about what we...
Day 18) The Earthquake Mon, 12-Apr-2010 (beth)
(from Friday) Reached for some banana at lunchtime and there was a shudder. It felt as if an enormous truck had been driving by for just a couple of quick seconds. I had never felt an earthquake before but I knew it wasn't strong or even remotely dangerous. Regardless of that fact, however, the first thing we all did was look up at the cement ceiling above us. I looked at Naomi, beside me. Her face was emotionless, or perhaps a mixture of emotion that was too complex to describe. For how can you describe the feelings of someone who...
Day 19) Steps Forward Mon, 12-Apr-2010 (beth)
(from Saturday) It's Saturday and we've just gotten back from the longest walk ever. It's made me completely forget what we did yesterday. We had a good class, did a lot of painting and I think the kids really enjoyed it. The mentors are really starting to find their ground in class and it's great to see. After asking the kids what they did yesterday, trying to “review”, the question backfired and I decided that the white girl needed to stop talking and we needed to let the teachers take over. So today we gathered around in our usual circle....
Day 20) Church Mon, 12-Apr-2010 (beth)
(from Sunday) Well, here we were again, standing up in front of a crowd. At this point Bill and I have gotten pretty used to introducing ourselves in front of large groups of people. After numerous classrooms and training sessions, introducing ourselves yet again in front of Renia's church was another opportunity to try explaining, in 100 words or less, exactly what we were up to in Haiti. The church was mainly standing except for the back of it, which was completely knocked out. A USAID tent covered the new sitting area, with the pastor and assistants seated just before...
Day 22) More Valuable Than Anything Fri, 16-Apr-2010 (beth)
(from Tuesday) We've been so swamped the past couple of days that I haven't even had a chance to jump on my computer to work. Yesterday's class was GREAT! Benaja had to email a translation so we started class without him. I successfully instructed mentors and students in Creole and they really took over like pros. We are so proud of them. Lionel, one of our group leaders, told us he would be late to class but ended up arriving AFTER class. It frustrated us. He's doing a great job as a teacher but he's not the strongest group leader....
Day 23) Flying Colors Mon, 19-Apr-2010 (beth)
(from Wednesday) Getting up early in the morning, repainting John Engle's daughter, Layla's, nails after she lost almost all the color after only one week, driving through the city for hours while trying to not show up to class too late with computers in hand. And class went great! Bill, Benaja and I tried our best to do as little as possible. It's entirely possible that we were lazy and that's the reason. But we also wanted to see the mentors do what they do best all by themselves. We were thoroughly impressed with their work and everything went really...
Day 24) Petite Riviere des Nippes Mon, 19-Apr-2010 (beth)
(from Thursday) Sitting at Manilow's Inn in Petite Riviere des Nippes, watching the sun as it sets over the ocean. Just got out of taking a hot shower in my hotel room and eating a delicious meal of conch with Bill and Benaja. Feeling a little bit like a queen right now! We got to Petite Riviere at about 9:30 this morning and headed right into the school. I stupidly forgot a whole bunch of chargers in Darbonne- that's the main problem right now, though we have enough chargers to last us if we use the chargers that were already...
Day 25) Getting Stronger Mon, 19-Apr-2010 (beth)
(from Friday) Each day the program at Petite Riviere is getting stronger, and I know the mentors feel it too. After a successful tanning day and a difficult but enjoyable conversation with some Red Cross volunteers, I headed to school with Bill and Benaja in time for our 12:15 mentor planning meeting. The planning meeting was a little less organized than we'd hoped. The mentors kept going into the students' classroom because a lot of the students were already there. They seemed more interested in sitting with the students than in planning, but eventually we got them all to sit...
Day 26) Guidance Mon, 19-Apr-2010 (beth)
(from Sunday) With a stomach full of delicious Haitian coffee, I turned around under the dome of Manilow's inn and saw Antoine waiting for me. He grinned his big toothy grin and waved as he sat by the inn's fountain. It's Saturday, which means market day. Despite the fact that Bill, Benaja and I have all tried to explain to Antoine that I am happily in another relationship, Antoine doesn't seem to get it. So we have a date today to go to the market and I can't refuse because he didn't really even ask me if I wanted to...
Day 27) Burnt Mon, 19-Apr-2010 (beth)
(from Sunday) My body is burning. It may be from the boat ride in Antoine and Emmanuel's motorboat, followed by a solid two or three hour lay in the midday Haitian sun. What can I say, I'm 24 years old. I'm not supposed to be reasonable yet. Highlights include more saltwater in our faces than we had really bargained for, the stereo that Antoine broke out once we hit land, watching Michena dance with two sticks as if she were playing the drums, and, of course, the sand toilet that we all made (complete with water in the bowl and...
Day 29) Then, magic happened Sun, 25-Apr-2010 (beth)
(from Tuesday) It's 12:15- time for our mentor meeting- and there are only six out of ten mentors here. I pace back and forth. Today is the most important day of our visit so far. In trying to make peace with the principal at our school in Petite Riviere des Nippes, we had invited him to come and watch class today, then sit with us for a few minutes as we go through our mentor breakdown meeting. We would welcome his questions and comments, and simultaneously try to show him that he can trust us to make this program run...
Day 30) lean into the wind Sun, 25-Apr-2010 (beth)
(from Wednesday) There's a breeze settling in on the ocean. I scan my eyes over the horizon- nothing, nothing, nothing but water and sky, nothing...then, a tiny sailboat in the far-off distance. Imagine the horizon is the peace that I want to maintain today in this blog post, and that the sailboat is the very small detail that I am going to write about- just enough to not disturb what is around it. Today has been quite the day and I am not about to even remotely disrupt the perfection that we seemed to have reached. The mentors showed up...
Day 31) more than anything Sun, 25-Apr-2010 (beth)
(from Thursday) We call ourselves the Green and White Berets: Bill, Beth and Benaja. Bill calls us the “B Team”-- a compilation of our three B names and also what you get when you can't afford the A team. Together, we make things work. We are the OLPC/Haiti special forces. And we're here to get the job done. Our mentors in Petite Riviere des Nippes feel the same way. Our last day here went very similarly to the way our last day in Darbonne went. We did little to disrupt class and let the mentors hold their before and after...
Day 33) "To them, you are a mother." Sun, 25-Apr-2010 (beth)
(from Saturday) Eddy tugs my hand and looks at me with that goofy smile of his. I still don't know what his eyes look like because he is wearing a pair of enormous black sunglasses. He has on a yellow shirt and red shorts with a Hawaiian print. Those shorts, they give his personality away in a second. Charmingly awkward, friendly, low-maintenance. He smiles at me and he never speaks, but that smile, it speaks volumes. I hold out my fist. He bumps it with his own. He looks at me with those enormous sunglasses. Then he slowly walks away,...
Day 34) The kids are SO smart Sun, 25-Apr-2010 (beth)
One of our students (I don't know his name yet) is missing a part of both of his wrists so his hand are curved inward. His thumb curls below his hand. Besides this, he is a perfectly normal kid who has completely overcome his disability. He's good natured and I don't think the kids around him even realize that he had difficulty sometimes using his hands. We watch him struggle for hours with the trackpad on his XO. I'm not even sure what to say to him because I'm honestly just holding my breath for the trackpad to keep WORKING....
Day 35) The Seven Elements of Success Mon, 26-Apr-2010 (beth)
Today has been a big puddle of stress. The kids need more attention than Bill and I can offer them. On top of this, an important OLPC meeting has come up tomorrow so we're leaving Williamson early. In evaluating our projects so far, Bill and I have come up with the Seven Elements of Success in an OLPC/Waveplace project. Each element is absolutely essential. Without any one of them, an initiative cannot be successful. We thought we would make this list so that we can better prepare ourselves in the future for more successful pilots. Due to the particular situation...
