This morning we went over to the Street Academy for our last time this trip. We were met by journalists from a local newspaper who had been told about our visit, so there was a photo op and Dave was interviewed about our work and the deployments.

We then set up the laptops in the room that still had electricity and spent more time working with the teachers on the applications and showing off some of the ideas that Nancy had for teaching the children how to use the word processor.

Laptops set up for training!

I also spent more time today talking to my new friend Isaac. He’s a college student who does volunteer work in the form of training at the school. He does a lot of graphics work so he’s quite attached to the Adobe suite of applications he uses on Windows, but is interested in checking out Ubuntu on his personal netbook. Unfortunately I didn’t bring a version of 12.04 on a USB stick and the hotel internet wasn’t good enough to download and prep one last night. I gave him a CD and my card instead, promising if he emailed me that I’d send him instructions to get him sorted.

Then we got a picture before we left for the day!

It was then back to the hotel for some freshening up and an attempt at lunch. Time is a problem here in Ghana, meeting appointment times seem to be more of a suggestion, there rarely are regular schedules for things and restaurants usually take a very long time to bring food. In this case, we waited over an hour for our lunch and ended up having to wrap it up after a few bites so we could get to our 3PM meeting.

Our 3PM meeting (which actually started at 3:40, see above) was at the small Google office in Accra. We were meeting with Estelle Akofio-Sowah about some of the work Google has been doing in developing nations to help get businesses online, promotion of strong female technical leaders in Africa (since our team is 3/4 female) and other work. Computer Reach in Pittsburgh has worked closely with Google on projects, so it was nice to have a meeting on the ground here. Oh, and we got awesome t-shirts!

Tonight we got more news about the status of the computers that were shipped over. It seems that customs issues have been mostly been worked through and we have our fingers crossed that we’ll have them in our hands by Monday. That will give us a bit of time to at least do the deployments planned for here in Accra before we have to leave next week.

As mentioned in my last post, we’re leaving tomorrow to head up to Ho to check out another existing deployment. There may also be some monkeys in my future.

Finally, lest my posts be full of too many smiles and excitement, Nancy has been a bit more honest when it comes to the conditions here. In posts here and here she writes about the heat, dirt, noise, smells and other less savory portions of our trip. While I am enjoying this adventure, I have to be truthful and admit that staying in a developing country is not easy for a pampered American like me. I wasn’t quite sure what people meant when they said a trip like this changes you, but now I do, there was some major culture shock for me here that I had to adjust to. No amount of reading about conditions in a place really prepares you for the inescapable reality of it.

This morning we left the hotel around 8AM to meet Daniel at the school in Tema where he is head master. The ride out to Tema took about an hour, much of the trip was on paved roads, but the last few miles were unpaved and the taxi had to take it a bit slow through some parts where the road had some steep bumps and holes. The Rightway International School was founded in 2010 and currently serves around 180 students from very young pre-school children (2-3 years old) through ages 7-8. Their active staff there today appeared to be about 10 people.

The pre-school students are divided up into 3 rooms in the main building (the first building of the school) and the rest of the students are in newly constructed open air wooden buildings on the lot.

While visiting I got to sit in on a portion of a class where the students were learning about the computer mouse and what it did. In another class they were learning about the keyboard. This is all done with paper books that the students share at their desks, verbal repetition and with the teacher drawing examples and explaining things on a chalkboard.

Even though Daniel is our guide on this trip, his school is not one of the ones slated to received computers this time around. Instead, they’re currently in the first phases of building a new school (explaining that the first one is temporary). The plot of land for the new school was just a short walk away, so we were able to get a tour of that as he explained their plans, including the separate buildings for various facilities: classrooms, cafeteria and kitchen, a computer lab, a science lab and a library. They will also have power and mobile broadband available to them in this location. The building is done in phases, fully completing one building at a time. Once the computer lab building is ready we’ll be in a great position to bring computers there.

It was interesting to note that there were a few other buildings around that were former schools. They’re not easy to run and budgetary concerns greatly limit what can be done and how successful a school is.

The ride back to Accra was uneventful. We spent about an hour at the hotel cooling off before heading off to our next adventure of the day.

Which was the National Museum! I don’t have any photos from the museum because they charge for photo privileges (it almost doubles admission, ouch!). They had an eclectic mix of traditional Ghanaian folk artifacts and tradition, things from the colonial period and a full exhibit about Ghana’s part of the slave trade. They also had exhibits that went beyond Ghana, a lot of things from Nigeria and also some from Kenya and Egypt. In the rear of the museum they had a room filled with locally-crafted gifts which was run by one of the artists. It was a pleasure speaking with the artist as he showed me some of his paintings, the bead work his mother did and some of the work of other artists. I ended up walking out with a small(ish) wall mask that has the gye nyame adinkra symbol on it and a beaded elephant carving. We then quickly got some very late lunch at a nearby establishment that seemed to have run out of most things for the day but was able to serve us chicken and fish with rice.

This evening I spent a little time getting familiar with the PXE server that Dave brought along for imaging new machines.

I am now giving myself a final refresher course in exactly what ships with Edubuntu 10.04 before going back on site at the Street Academy tomorrow. I’ve also been paging through the Ubuntu Manual for 10.04 which we’ve made a policy of sending along with each computer, I also brought along a paper copy that we’ll leave with one of our contacts here. I’m picking out some very specific basic things to review with the teachers tomorrow, Nancy will be working on application-level training. Tomorrow should be an exciting training day!

On Sunday I woke up with an uncooperative stomach. Fortunately the plans for that morning was the social-networking opportunity at a Jubilee International Church and not a technical event I was strictly required to attend. Nancy writes about their experience at the church over on her blog: Sunday Worship. I spent much of the day in bed.

In the late afternoon I was feeling better enough to have a look at one of the Edubuntu laptops we brought along. The administrator who built them (and the PXE server that was sent along to re-image machines) had a vision for securing them all with a firewall and content filter, but testing stateside this past month determined that they were too restrictive. I ended up writing some instructions to remove the dansguardian and firehol packages and to specifically upgrade firefox to the latest version available in 10.04. I’ve uploaded a draft of the instructions and would like to see it simplified even further in a script using the -y flag in apt-get after I do some more testing. I’ll also be taking a look at the imaging server this week to see if we can sneak some of these changes into new systems we re-image. When everyone came back to the hotel we ended up having both Dave and Daniel test my instructions.

Testing Edubuntu fixes

This morning we met in the business center again where we had fixed the Edubuntu machines the night before to talk about the plans for the day and discuss the final draft of the Ownership Agreement sheet, which includes the stipulation that the machines donated can’t have their software replaced. It’s a nice document, may use something similar in projects in the future!

Our first real meeting was with Ayorkor Korsah, a Computer Science professor at Ashesi University College who got her graduate degree at Carnegie Mellon University. Aside from her standard faculty work at the university, she also was an adviser for the latest iSTEP 2012 program in the summer which brought student interns from Carnegie Mellon and Ashesi University together to develop water and waste tracking technology for use at Ashesi.

She had also worked with the Street Academy, the school we visited on the first day, and talked about some of the work that students now do with younger children from schools in the region around Ashesi to teach them some about computers. It was interesting to learn that ITC is actually part of the curriculum here in Ghana, so it’s on the standardized tests for students, but for many students it’s just theory since they don’t all have access to actual computers. On the topic of curriculum, she suggested we work to get ahold of the curriculum for students now to see if we can work toward crafting our own training in schools with the computers we’re bringing in to serve the same goals. Finally, we fleshed out the key topics we should be covering when we meet with new schools for their training, including strategies for making sure students have access to the computers and how to handle physical care and basic troubleshooting of problems.

We then had a lunch meeting with Fenton B. Sands, Senior Food Security Officer in the Economic Growth Office at the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) at the U.S. Embassy in Ghana. He was a fascinating person to meet, full of stories about his experiences both home in the United States and in developing countries that he’s worked in. He was able to give us a great picture of how the relative political stability of Ghana over the past several years, even through leadership changes, has made Ghana a very appealing target for foreign aid and investment. Given his passion for the work, connections throughout the developing world and current position he is a great person for us to have met with.

It was then time finally pick up my luggage at the airport! I can’t begin to describe how much of a relief it is to finally have my things back and to wear my own clothes again. My suitcase had clearly been gone through somewhere in its adventure though, which I’m not thrilled about. It’s a good thing I never travel with valuables in my checked baggage.

On our way back I got a glimpse of this amusing sign:

Hey, Ubuntu Courts! Maybe if we ever need a formal, more permanent home base here…

In the evening we met with one of our contacts from Damongo, in the northern region of Ghana. Given the shifted schedule of the computer deployment due to customs issues, Beth Lynn may be the only one making it up there this trip since she’s staying an extra week. It was nice to get to meet someone from up there though, he talked some about the communities he works with and their current familiarity with Ubuntu.

Second full day in Ghana! I’ve been having incredibly vivid dreams these past couple nights and I kept coming up with reasons for it – not enough sleep, stress, travel. Upon meeting bright and early at 7AM for breakfast I had a different excuse, Dave mentioned similar and it turns out it’s one of the common side-effects of the anti-malarial medication Malarone we’re all taking. Aha!

Since not much can be done on weekends just yet, we primarily spent it doing tourist things as Daniel handled a bunch of follow-up calls so we could schedule our plans for the next couple of days. Our first adventure of the day was visiting Makola Market. It’s a huge outdoor marketplace where you can find and purchase all kinds of things. It’s also chaotic, cramped and a bit overwhelming. I actually had to get some clothes since my luggage hasn’t turned up so I was able to find a few nice long skirts. We also stopped briefly at a vendor who would prepare fresh coconuts for drinking from! We indulged, having never done it before. I was a bit worried that it would taste like coconut milk (which I don’t care for), but it actually was quite good and refreshing.

After an hour at the market we were all pretty hot and tired, so Daniel directed us to a nice place for a break, the nearby Kwame Nkrumah Mausoleum and Memorial Park. Kwame Nkrumah was the first president of Ghana upon its independence and was quite the respected leader within the country. The park is a beautiful place. It’s wide open with gardens, fountains and the breeze from the nearby coastline was the refresher we all needed. The mausoleum itself rises strikingly in the center of the park.

While we were there there were also several wedding parties there taking photos throughout the park. There was also a small museum dedicated to the life and work of Nkrumah with lots of really great photos and some artifacts from his work and life. While we were leaving we were approached by several vendors, one of whom was selling wood-carved giraffes. My father had some wood carvings from his time traveling in Kenya so it was irresistible to me, one is now coming home with me. We also enjoyed our first bags of water. Small plastic bags of drinking water are common here since the drinking water isn’t very safe and bags are considerably cheaper than bottles. I didn’t go for the whole bag experience though, there’s only so much adventure I can take! Instead I cheated and just poured it into the water bottle I’ve been carrying. Dave went for it though.

It was then into a cab for a ride to the beach! We weren’t there to swim or sunbathe, instead just to visit the beach, touch the water and enjoy it for a bit.

Enjoy it we did! And had lunch at one of the many restaurants that line the beach and have tables set up right on the beach. Today I had much better luck with the local cuisine and ordered “Red Red” – a bean stew and fried plantain dish. It was really good, I might even take a stab at making it at home. Throughout our time on the beach we were approached almost non-stop by vendors selling everything from food to paintings to bracelets and t-shirts.

Lunch at the beach!

While the tourist stuff was fun, being the Linux geek that I am the high point of the day was visiting the Accra Linux Users Group. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this meeting when it came to our actual deployments in Ghana, but I sure was excited to meet other Linux enthusiasts.

The meeting ended up being great. They have a great leader in Sabra Asante who not only maintains the LUG but encourages introductions and a path for new users who attend meetings and want to know more about Linux (first give it a try on lab computers, next meeting you install it, etc). We discussed the work we do at home, so I spoke about Ubuntu and Partimus, and then focused on the work we were there to do in Ghana. Sabra was able to get commitments out of several of the LUG members to help support both the deployment planned for Accra but some of those beyond. They’re also seeking to expand LUGs beyond Accra and hope the schools can be a vector for that expansion, plus be their venue for on the ground support. Making these kinds of connections will be essential for the success of these deployments so I’m really excited that we were able to meet with them.

Accra Linux Users Group

This evening a few of us headed over to the Accra Mall to get the rest of the items I’d need to survive at least three more days without my suitcase. I wasn’t at all sure what to expect, but it turned out to be quite the western shopping mall – very familiar! I was able to get everything I needed at a store called Mr Price and in spite of credit card hassle (VISA transactions were timing out, and my Amex cards simply aren’t happy here in Ghana) I’m pleased with what I was able to quickly find and buy. We also swung by the grocery store to pick up a few items and then got a pizza and some fried chicken to bring back to the hotel for everyone for dinner.

While eating dinner Daniel called the airport again about my luggage. There was news! They said they have located it and it should be on the flight coming in from Frankfurt tomorrow night. I won’t celebrate until it’s back in my hands, but it is quite the stress load off knowing that the status of “unknown” was no longer applicable.

Tomorrow we’re going to attend church services with one of our contacts here and then I’m planning on working out those lingering issues with the Edubuntu installs and will write a script to automate it for others to use on the machines I won’t have access to. I’m also looking forward to sitting down with Nancy (the teacher among us!) as we explore some more of the Edubuntu software and start writing a mapping of software to lesson plans, like how Blinken can be used to teach colors and mouse skills. In general, tomorrow should be a more low-key day as we also work to flesh out some of our plans for the next few days.

Nancy’s post about the day: Tourism and Free Software

Friday was my first full day in Ghana. We had breakfast at the hotel and then met up with Daniel so we could begin our meetings for the day. We also learned that there were some customs troubles that were delaying the release of the computers, a situation we later learned is exceptionally common here.

I got my first sights of Accra in the daylight and was able to share in Nancy’s admiration for the people everywhere who were carrying all kinds of things on their heads!

Our first stop was The Street Academy where we were able to spend some time talking with the Executive Director of the school, Ataa Lartey. He was keen to see more computers come to the school, as the children tend to fight over using them and it makes it so routinely only the stronger children get turns with using them.

We did get our first taste of what Ubuntu bug #1 looks like though when we had a look at the computers that Computer Reach sent them several months ago:

Yes, that’s Windows, replacing the copy of Edubuntu that had previously been on there. The origins of the copies of Windows were a dubious, and one of the 3 working computers had a completely corrupted version that prevented it from booting. This is one of the major challenges faced with these deployments when you don’t have constant on the ground staff (which we’re working on getting), the people who end up maintaining the systems there tend to reinstall the systems with something they’re familiar with – meaning Windows. We took the computers with us back to the hotel to get Edubuntu reinstalled so they could get all their educational software back.

We then went to the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT. I wasn’t familiar with the organization so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but we were quickly blown away by their progressive, pro-open source agenda. At the core they are a technical training center, but they also host a lot of pro-open source events and a lot of their training is focused on open source (they also do some Oracle and other major certs). We also learned about the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA) meeting upcoming up on Saturday, which Beth Lynn decided to attend.

We met with Dorothy K. Gordon who related some stories about some of their own attempts at bringing in recycled computers for deployments, particularly with how challenging it was. Given costs on both ends, customs hassles and more they determined that it wasn’t in their best interest to continue the desktop programs. She was quite interested in seeing terminal service deployments instead, which were generally cheaper to begin with and would help with security (much less likely for a single thin client to be stolen since it’s somewhat useless on its own).

We also had the opportunity to see a central node for some of the country’s network infrastructure that goes out to ITC centers, as well as one of the computing clusters that they’ve been using for weather analysis and other major projects. It was really fun hearing from their core Linux gurus who run everything there.

Following this visit it was off to lunch where I got to try my first Ghanaian disk: chicken and fufu with soup. We ate our food with our right hand and washed up at the table. Sadly I quickly discovered that I’m not the biggest fan of fufu! The chicken was great though, as was the fried plantain Nancy shared and the experience was certainly worth it!

We also had a chance to briefly meet with Hubert Akumiah who works with a Jubilee International Church branch in Ghana. He was more optimistic about handling customs hassles and sketched out the basics of a method for shipping we may use next time.

That evening we reimaged the Edubuntu machines with the PXE boot laptop imaging server that Dave brought along. I also spent some time debugging some of the issues on the Edubuntu installs we had related to web browsing, which turned out to be the firewall which we now have a plan to deal with. I think we’ll also make sure Firefox is upgraded on all the machines, but I’ll work more on that Saturday evening.

Sadly, my luggage has still not surfaced. It put quite the damper on my evening last night as I started to have to come to terms with the possibility that it wouldn’t show up at all. This morning we’re planning on heading over to a couple open air markets to do the tourist thing and so I can buy some clothes. We’re also planning on seeing a few other sights today and then going to visit the Accra Linux Users Group later this afternoon. I mentioned that Beth Lynn would be attending the FOSSFA event, which was tempting, but after my bag woes I could really use a good ole tourist day.

Dave has written some about our first day here: Settled in on Oct 11, 2012

And Nancy’s posts from our day:

Street Academy
Friday Lunch
AITI

On Wednesday the 10th MJ dropped me off at San Francisco airport’s International terminal where I grabbed some lunch before boarding my 2:55PM Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt. Aside from being long (around 11 hours), the flight was uneventful, I made significant use of their on-flight entertainment system and even managed to get a couple hours of sleep.

Distance plus time zone change means I arrived in Frankfurt at 10:55 AM on Thursday. After getting quite turned around and accidentally leaving the secure area (my luggage is being sent on to Accra automatically? Oh, good!). I eventually made my way to the Lufthansa lounge near my gate for an hour or so of enjoying their water and Internet access. The flight to Accra was slightly delayed for boarding, but in spite of that the plane boarded quickly and we were on our way almost on time by 2:10PM. Flight time on this was just under 7 hours, putting us on the ground in Accra around 7PM. I took the opportunity this flight to doze a fair amount, probably getting about 4 hours of sleep broken by waking up hourly. During one of my moments of wakefulness I was able to snap a picture out my window as we flew over the Sahara.

The Sahara from my plane!

I think flying over the Sahara is when things really got real for me. I was really flying over Africa, seeing a desert I have only heard stories and legends about!

We arrived in Ghana on time and were welcomed by hot but not unmanageable weather and a cool terminal following a quick ride from the tarmac in a shuttle. They checked our documents for Yellow Fever vaccinations and getting through passport control and customs was easy with properly filled out forms (thankfully given to us early on our flight out of Frankfurt).

Then I got to baggage claim, but my suitcase did not. I spent 20 minutes waiting in line to submit a lost baggage report, and was able to give them hotel and contact information of Daniel, our on the ground contact here. Fingers crossed that they find it and it gets to me some time on Friday, I’m not thrilled about another day in the clothes I traveled it. I’m not sure what I’ll do if it doesn’t get here!

I bought a SIM card for my phone on they way out to meet my fellow travel companions who had arrived on an earlier flight, they were waving at me as soon as I reached the public area of the airport. Within the hour I was checked into my own room at the hotel.

Settled in hotel room in Accra

Between what Daniel could quickly buy and Nancy brought along as extra, they got me sorted with some basic toiletries and Dave (the USA-based leader of our team) loaned me a t-shirt to sleep in. I got my SIM on my phone sorted before bed and was probably finally able to fall asleep around 11PM. I woke up at 3AM and couldn’t fall back to sleep, it’s now just after 4AM and I’m going to try to get some more rest before breakfast around 8AM. Friday really starts our adventure on the ground here in Ghana with, at the very least, a visit to our first school and meeting with another contact here.

Finally, the Internet access here at the hotel is slow, but usable. I’m not sure how long this will be the case so I’ll do my best to at least write updates even if I can’t always post photos or have access to Internet to post them immediately upon (or even within a few days of) writing.