A Mixed May
Bukoba, Tanzania
Greg Vogl
Saturday, May 26, 2001
Work
My main work has not been teaching but computer maintenance. I have so much software that I would like to install, but the hard disks on all the computers are nearly full. I have to copy it from CD onto a Zip disk at home, which means I have to carry around the Zip drive and risk that it will be damaged. If that goes, I will have to resort to PC Sync for file transfers, which would require lugging my computer around. (Leopold the driver would probably be able to bring me back and forth.)
I have managed to install Norton Antivirus on most of the PCs, but some are still infected with the Dodgy/Ravage B virus and Norton therefore refuses to install itself. McAfee and Dr. Solomon's won't remove it either, and I don't think PC-Cillin that is used at the Cyber Centre detects it at all, since I noticed that I infected a floppy there. I finally found that the DOS command fdisk /mbr removes the virus from the master boot record. There seems to be a striking similarity between computer viruses and AIDS in Africa. Information is shared freely, many people are ignorant about the existence of viruses or how they are spread or fatalistic that they can't prevent them, means of protection are expensive, difficult to use and not easily available, and poverty, the climate, physical environment and other causes of ill health are additional contributing factors.
To save 20 MB of disk space, I removed Iomega Tools from a computer with a bad floppy disk but neglected to copy Iomega Guest to the hard drive first, so I have been unable to install anything on that computer or copy anything from it. I even tried using the floppy disk from another computer, but it didn't work, so I suspect a bad power supply connection that I can't fix. I am hoping that I can use the Windows 95 Direct Cable Connection, which was not installed on that computer (but fortunately a copy of the Windows 95 installation files were), if the serial cables I have will work.
Two computers displayed the message "missing operating system" and I was unable to read the c: drive even though FDISK showed an existing partition. The only thing I could do was re-partition and re-format the hard disks, without recovering any of the students' files. FDISK only recognized 504 and 540 MB instead of 1080 and 1089 MB of the hard disks. I installed Windows 98 SE and had some trouble reinstalling the drivers for the graphics and network cards, but now they seem to work without complaint. I didn't have Office 97 on CD, and Office 2000 would have filled the hard disks completely, so I installed Office 95, which does not recognize files made in Office 97. The next day, the hard disk on another computer failed, and again the students lost their work. I have advised students to save their work on floppy disks because the computers can die without warning. I suppose I could make weekly backups to Zip disks if I had a few extras, but it might take hours.
I managed to squeeze Windows 95, Word 95, Excel 95 and Norton Antivirus 2001 on a 486 with just 8 MB RAM and 200 MB hard disk because it would not get past the Windows 3.11 screen. The computer in the library had the same problem a week later, but it only has a 120 MB hard disk. Fortunately I managed to get Windows 3.11 working by booting from a Windows 95 floppy, copying some of the DOS files onto another floppy, booting from that, and running fdisk /mbr, Scandisk and Defrag. (I'm not sure which one fixed it; I should have been scientific and only changed one variable at a time.)
Because of the computer problems, student assignments have been delayed. In IT2 they are to create a personal website; in Programming they have been writing Pascal programs on recursion and JavaScript programs on event handling. As usual, I tried to go too fast and teach too much. In two days I wrote and taught a four-page summary of JavaScript core language and client-specific features. (I later found on my CD of IU course web sites a more advanced treatment of the same things that my friend Adrian had written for his web programming class, and I copied that onto the student computers as well.) All but one of the students managed to give a PowerPoint presentation in time, but about four students with little or no previous computer background continue to lag behind, and I fear may be losing confidence. There is time for one more major topic before the final exams. For my IT2 class I started teaching Access; for my programming class I'm not sure what I will teach: maybe list operations in JavaScript, or a little graphics or sound in Java or QBasic.
The portables of the two British lecturers both had problems. Ann's monitor only displays properly when nearly closed, probably because a cable in the hinge is damaged, so she uses a separate keyboard at home and separate monitor at work. Nicola's portable stopped functioning completely until we swapped the battery with the one in Professor Katoke's computer. Fortunately both computers can still be used and no data was lost.
Probably my biggest mistake to date was that I forgot to lock the office while I was teaching an evening class. Cyprian, the bursar, told me that as a result, someone stole the equivalent of US$250 in university money from his drawer. I hadn't known he had kept money there, but the university doesn't have a safe. I offered to pay the university, but Professor Katoke (the Deputy Vice Chancellor, formerly the Acting Vice Chancellor) declined, saying it was Cyprian's fault. He has to pay in a few monthly installments. They even "exiled" him by moving his office to a separate building. Now Cyprian is understandably unhappy with me, though he still talks with me. I'm still considering paying him at least part of the money. Ideally the responsibility would be shared equally by me, Cyprian and the university, but I doubt they would see it that way.
The university move to the new location (up the hill on the road to Kashozi and Ihungo School) appears to be on schedule. Ann printed her draft of the university prospectus which includes my descriptions of my proposed computing courses. I wrote a proposal requesting donated computers and listed books for the IT courses I had proposed, giving ideal targets as well as bare minimum requirements. We will need to hurry if we are to get them by the beginning of next semester (September/October) because shipping takes so long. Some possible sources of old computers include the University of Westminster (England) where the Vice-Chancellor currently teaches, Computers for Africa (Scotland) who donated computers to the University a year or two ago, the Vice-Chancellor's Japanese contacts, and VSO Tanzania (Dar es Salaam).
Home
No need to send me food; I'm slow, but I'll eventually learn how things work here. I'm sure the solution will be some combination of eating out, buying a small fridge, hiring a cook, exploring the market and town, and cooking new things. My temporary solution to my protein deficiency problem has been to eat out for lunch; I can usually get a decent meal with meat and/or beans for only $1 and save lots of time. I have tried several protein foods at home, such as fish, eggs, powdered milk, steak, beans, etc. with varying degrees of success. I am looking for some compromise between preparation time, nutrition and cost. Since she returned from Rwanda in early May, MariAna has been cleaning my house nicely every Wednesday and cooks me a good lunch, too. I haven't asked about pay yet, but I'm pretty sure it won't be much. I have lots of extra money for now, too.
The weather has continued to be rainy, though the rains have almost always been in the a.m. hours and not too much of a bother. The past few days have been mostly sunny. I do wear darker trousers on rainy days, as the roads are muddy. The temperature is about ideal. Lake flies have not been much of a problem, though they increased this past weekend, and one day for no obvious reason there were about 100 houseflies in my kitchen and it took me a few days to chase most of them out and swat the rest.
The electricity has been off some weekends (I often use my computer battery) but on others. Rumour has it that the source of the problem is in Uganda and that it is due to maintenance. Saturday the water was also off, though the hot water tank for my shower still had more than enough water to shower and do the laundry and dishes.
I have only gone running twice so far, and I am way out of shape, but maybe I will start running more. I also need to do my upper-body exercises more regularly, as my back has been bothering me somewhat. But I'm happy that I have managed to avoid being "sick" so far.
Conclusion
I have certainly had ups and downs, and many problems remain, but in general, I do not feel too stressed out, and I can live with things if I solve a few of the food and health issues and we can get new computers for next term. Another challenge is to think of what I will do to keep occupied during the two or three month long break, though I'm sure I'll think of plenty.
For past letters and other information about Bukoba, keep checking http://gvogl.tripod.com/bukoba/.