Subject: Bukoba #15: February Fallow
Date: Thursday, February 7, 2002
It's been a few weeks since I've checked my e-mail. I could sign up for an e-mail account at the ELCT bookstore that would allow me to send and receive messages for only 500/= per 15 minutes (about $2/hour) but I'm hoping the Cyber Centre will save me the trouble of changing my e-mail address. Their latest guesstimate of when they will provide Internet access again is the end of February.
I met with my supervisors (Susan of VSO and Professor Katoke of UoB), but Professor Katoke said I may not teach at any secondary school, even if it were to bring money to the University. Mainly for equipment and logistics reasons I will not be teaching certificate courses now. We agreed that my focus for the next two months will be to design IT courses and obtain equipment.
The opening date of the University of Bukoba has been set at April 2. (It could have been Monday, April 1, but I guess they didn't want anyone to think they were fooling, considering it has been delayed six months already.) April 2 is the date I arrived last year, so maybe I arrived exactly a year too early, having taught only 10 weeks of IT degree courses, though those courses would have been cancelled without someone to teach them. The HEAC decision was to allow us to continue with our current level of accreditation another six months until May 27 and decide our future then. At this point it's looking good.
The new campus site is being rapidly transformed from ruins into a real campus. We went up there for a look and I took many photos with my digital and non-digital cameras; it looks nice but a lot remains to be done. Enough will be ready for classes by April; even when I visited, many rooms looked almost ready except for electricity and water.
On January 21 the Cyber Centre delivered our first (and maybe only) new computer: a Compaq Deskpro Pentium III 1 GHz with 128 MB RAM, 20 GB HD, CD-ROM, sound card, speakers, 10/100 Ethernet, modem, Windows XP Professional, Office XP and UPS. The same day, the hard disk that I ordered from dell.com arrived by post from the US, just a month after I ordered it, and I managed to open my portable, install it and get it working. As a pleasant surprise it was 30 GB instead of 10 GB, a nice bonus and a good deal for $100 + $20 shipping. (A 10 GB drive would have cost me $300 here.) So I have been thoroughly enjoying my toys and feel like I'm back in the 21st century (at least when I'm using them).
Because I have not been using the student computers for teaching, I have been setting them up for the staff to use until April. We also received a new keyboard, three keyboard adapters and four anti-glare monitor filters. I am still waiting for an inkjet printer, which will save me considerable time and hassles (saving in Office 95 format, copying to a floppy, bothering one of the other staff to use their computer and printer, reformatting the document to look roughly the same as the machine I created it on, etc.) I have also been piddling around with other minor but annoyingly time-consuming tasks like staff ID cards, a new university logo, grades and certificates for my Computer Maintenance class, etc.
The biggest IT need now is computers. The money promised by DRDP has been rescinded, since they are focusing on primary education (though I'd like to know the real reason why they changed their minds). I sent letters to six embassies (US, UK, Canada, Netherlands, Germany, Japan) asking for guidelines for funding applications. I also wrote to Computers for Africa with a greatly revised and condensed proposal. Our minimum requirement is Pentium-100s with 1 GB HDs. We only have 8 working or semi-working computers, 0.5 GB HDs, little room to install Java SDK, and the simplest program takes a whole minute to compile.
The second biggest need is books. I have started preparing ambitious syllabi for the four courses I plan to teach in April: programming I, IT in education, algorithms and data structures, and graphics programming. Without more books these courses will be difficult to teach, particularly the algorithms and data structures class. The second term I hope to offer programming II, computer maintenance, webmastering and web programming, and databases. I'm hoping to find some in Kampala sometime this month or order some on the Web while I'm there, but any used books you can send on these topics would be much appreciated! If you send them now by surface (postal service M-Bag) I'll get them in May.
The main outcome of my language training is that I have created a new Swahili/English computer program. I have written about 1300 lines (26 pages) of Java code. It can now translate about 2000 basic words and combine different parts of speech into phrases and sentences, though there are many features to add and bugs to fix. It doesn't do so well with English because there are so many exceptions (and I haven't yet looked for a book on English grammar).
After a week of searching, I found my installation CD for my digital camera. Everyone (especially me) is mesmerised by the My Pictures screen saver, which shows my digital photos of my students, the new campus, the Lake Hotel, Bukoba, Saa Nane Island, the Bujora Sukuma Museum, Morogoro, Zanzibar, and some pictures of Indiana University that I found on the IU Webmaster CD (to remind me what a university is supposed to look like). I am itching to take about 30 digital photos of the fascinating and often humorous artwork found on the local hair cutting salons and other buildings in town. Staff photos would be nice as well.
I typed a letter of recommendation for my domestic assistant Mariana who was then hired on a trial basis by an Austrian family living near Kibeta Primary School on the hill near Rugambwa. She may work there as much as four days a week and will work for me on Saturday or Sunday instead of Wednesday. I am happy for her as she has been underemployed for a long time but hope she isn't completely lured away by higher pay from the Austrians. Professor Katoke asked me if I would allow the newest lecturer, Mr. Mwabuki, dean of faculty of commerce and management, to share my apartment to save the University a lot of money, and I agreed. It would be good to have a housemate and he seems kind, but I am a bit worried, because I do not know him well, he is much older than me, and I am uncertain how it would affect my space, privacy, security and peace.
My health is better than it was in November, but still not so good, especially now that I have seductively fast computers. I have switched around some tables at work and had a special computer table and portable stand made for 67,000/= for home use, so my workspaces are now more ergonomic and office-like. I find that my hot water bottle is as effective for pain relief as any of the pills I've taken, so at least I'm not on drugs any more (except anti-malarials). I haven't been running or playing tennis; my only exercise is a daily walk around the airport, past Nyamukazi village, to the lake shore where I sit and soak in the peaceful and beautiful surroundings (waves, sand, breeze, green grass, birds, Musira Island, sunset skies, passers-by greeting me, etc.), past the Lake Hotel and the University, and back up the paved road into town. We've had relatively little rain lately and it has been sunny and hot, though I think the rainy season is about to start.
Two weeks ago my student Amin and I went to visit Tweyambe Secondary School near Rubafu and the Ugandan border, about a one-hour ride by daladala (van), where 30 computers have sat unused in a container since 1999. I didn't actually see the computers, just the container and a cornerstone indicating the future computer room. The container contains computers, a generator (since the school has no electricity) and even fuel. The school was pleasant, with beautiful views of surrounding valleys and hills, colourful hand-painted murals, some new classrooms and dormitories, and a new basketball court.
Last weekend I went with a few Bukoba volunteers in Louise's land cruiser to Karagwe, a small, spread-out town high in the hills near Rwanda, for Per and Anna's going-away party. We passed the Kagera River, a church bombed by Idi Amin's forces, and a prison for criminal Rwandan refugees, admired Louise's backyard view of the valley below, watched Per beat Tim and Clare beat Huw on a surfaced tennis court, played two hours of volleyball against a good local team, ate lots of local food (pilau, chapatis, sambusas, beef, pineapple, Fanta passion, etc.), danced to Moritz's CD selections until 3 am, crashed on the floor at Louise's, and played hearts after breakfast. On the return trip we took a hired daladala as far as Kyaka (half way) and then about 15 of us piled in the back of a pickup truck for the remaining hour and a half. Machteld and I sat near the tailgate and were completely covered with dust, and my feet were crushed by heavy sacks of matoke (hard green cooking bananas), but in retrospect it wasn't so bad. Half of our group was to continue in the same daladala to Muleba, but to my surprise I saw some of them again Wednesday in Bukoba. Shortly after we split up, the daladala (which they said had made an explosion on the way up to Karagwe) caught fire and overturned, and the other volunteers were lucky to get out unharmed. The daladala was consumed in flames and they lost a lot of their stuff, including a laptop and an expensive camera. Also, the driver was seriously injured and they had to take him to the Ndolage hospital. You don't think about how treacherous transportation here is until something like that happens. It could have been much worse for all of us.