Countdown to Arusha! [2015-09-27]
With all of the recent box-packing for the Philippines, it’s been easy to lose track of the fact that we’re now just five days away from departure to Tanzania! Seven boxes with the rest of the Free Geek hardware, some donated books and fabric, and a few other computer hardware donations were picked up Friday to support ten different schools in Cebu. We reclaimed our living room space for exactly one evening before the chaos of packing struck yet again, this time for Tanzania.
Everything is harder for the Tanzania projects. Shipping there is extremely expensive, so we carry the computer equipment as airline baggage. Yes, that too is very expensive but turns out to be the cheapest option. Thanks to a generous donation of laptops from a large Bay Area corporation we can serve schools in Tanzania that have nothing, at a shipping cost of less than $15 per laptop. However, unlike the Philippines, server parts and computer cases are not available in Arusha so we must take those items as well. It looks like we’ll end up taking 8 boxes of equipment, in addition to our two duffel bags of personal gear and four carry-ons that will hopefully swallow any overflow.
Yesterday’s project was rounding up everything that needs to go and then getting it boxed in such a way to meet the airline weight limit… as well as not have any one lost box jeopardize multiple schools. Talk about an over-constrained problem! We were so thrilled to have the help of Anil Vempati, a volunteer at the Silicon Valley branch of World Computer Exchange and someone who definitely has a passion for IT education. Anil efficiently bubble-wrapped 53 laptops, while Neal and I did lots of staring into boxes in an attempt to find an optimal solution. After lots of weighing and muttering and calculating, the three of us got just about everything allocated to a box. There is still work to do to finalize the packing, but the hard part is now past.
We’ve been receiving regular updates from David Nyangaka, our wonderful contact in the Arusha District Council office. The four high schools in Arusha are ready for our arrival, so we are hoping to hit the ground running when we get there. We have pre-arranged the purchase of UPSs, mice, and Ethernet cable and hope to pick those up on Saturday. With any luck, we’ll get started installing on Monday… but it’s probably more realistic to expect Tuesday!
We are also excited that we’ll be joined in our work for several days by Robin and Jacque Kimzey, volunteers with Kids on Computers (www.kidsoncomputers.org), an organization with similar goals to Reneal. We are looking forward to learning from their experiences in working overseas on various projects, as well as sharing the beauty and enjoyment of Tanzania.
More news soon – the next blog post should be from Arusha!