After saying goodbye to Herodion in Hinche, Ruben and I
headed to Lascahobas to take on our next assignment. We loaded into a van and were on our
way. The van was packed door to
door. Myself and 19 other people rocked
back and forth as we ventured over the poorly maintained dirt road. We reached the pavement and from there the
ride was much better. Just as I started to doze off, our driver abruptly pulled
over to the side of the road. He went
around to his front right tire, examined it, and then began to jack up the
car. We all piled out and moved over to
the shade. The driver decided that the
highway was the best place to change his break pad. The passengers were none
too pleased, and the general consensus was that the driver knew the problem
existed long before we left, but didn’t want to delay and miss out on the money
from a van full of people. We impatiently waited while he finished up,
and within an hour we were on our way once again.
My instructions upon arriving in Lascahobas were to ask a
motorcycle to take me to Bernadette’s house. Adam ensured me that they would
know the way. Lascahobas is a smaller
town and Bernadette is a big name in the community, everyone knows and respects
her. We arrived and the driver knew just
where to go. I paid him and we went inside.
Bernadette is an eccentric character whose friendly personality and hard
work has made her a local celebrity. She
runs a school just up the road from her house and has quite the arsenal of XOs. Unlike most schools, Bernadette’s school
signs the laptops out to the students who take them home and bring them back to
the school only for class. Most places
this is a bad idea but Lascahobas is a great town for this model. As I was saying, Bernadette is a huge figure
in the community. Everyone knows her and
knows that the XOs belong to her. The
community looks out for each other and looks out for her XO’s. Upon my arrival
they had 46 laptops signed out to kids at the school.
The first day we went to school and were taken up the laptop
room. Bernadette opened it up and we got
to work. I booted up my laptop and
checked the school server. Everything
checked out so now it was time to check on the laptops. Despite the school being set up with a new 12
volts electrical system 6 months prior to my arrival, they had been experiencing
issues with charging the laptops. I found a good battery and used it to check
through the 75 laptops that were laid out in front of me. All but six were in perfect working condition
and all but three I was able to salvage.
The next day we passed out 65 of those laptops and Thursday we had 3
laptop classes running simultaneously.
The total number of laptops was 109.
Next it was time to address the electrical issues.
The school has 2 permanent solar panels that run from the
roof to a charge controller that converts the voltage to 12 volts. The charge then travels to a set of 4
batteries connected in parallel, and then back up into the charge controller. From there the wires carry the charge to a
power strip that was connected to the wires by wrapping the wires around the
prongs and taping them with electrical tape.
Definitely not a conventional set up but after a few minutes of confused
stares I traced the flow of electricity.
I looked around the room and found a voltmeter, a familiar tool that I have
used in physics lab multiple times. I
took off the plastic tips and got some readings. After a few skype calls and a good amount of
discussing we decided it would be best to detach the 3rd set of
wires from the charge controller and connect them directly to the
batteries. This allowed us to get the 12
volts we needed to charge the laptops.
After fussing with the touchy wires for a while, we were able to have 9
laptops charging at once on the 12 volt system.
The next day, the job was to address the state of the other
set of 2 batteries connected in parallel.
These batteries were connected to wires that ran to the roof and had two
ports for connecting a rollable solar panel.
Inside the computer room, the batteries had a wire running to another
power strip able to charge 9 more laptops.
Based on the voltage being produced by these two batteries, it was easy
to tell that the solar panel had been in storage longer than it should have
been. I took it out and carried it to
the roof where I attached it. One of the frustrating aspects of volunteer
work is that at some point you leave, and the job is no longer in your
hands. Especially with technology,
maintenance is important. Whether it was ignorance or laziness, the maintenance
was not getting done. Laziness I cannot
fix, but as an educator I can do my best to cure ignorance. I took a second to enjoy the lovely view
before heading back to work. In the bottom of the frame you can see the
rollable solar panel providing charge to the batteries.
After a few hours of tinkering with broken laptops I went
and checked the voltage across the portable system. 30 volts across the solar panel, and 13.4
volts across the battery flowing into the second power strip. I hook up the remaining laptops, and all and
all was able to charge 16 laptops on the 12 volt system. Ruben and I smiled at our success and he ran
off to get some lunch. One of the
children had brought me a laptop with a faulty keyboard, so I disassembled one
of the broken XOs and was able to swap out keyboards. He came back a few hours later and was
extremely happy to have his laptop back in working condition. The school has a pile of laptops that they
claim are broken, a few seemed to have software issues but some are just good
for parts. After discussing it with Adam
and Sora, we decided it would be a good idea my last day to run a workshop
where I would teach a few of the best computer how to swap out parts. That was
set up for Friday, but Thursday I would get the chance to do some
teaching.
I spent most of the morning Thursday tinkering and was able
to fix a couple more laptops. My lesson
plan was to bring my mother’s favorite game show to the children of Lascahobas,
Jeopardy. The school has a terabyte
school server the kids can connect to, called Internet-in-a-box. The hard drive contains Wikipedia in dozens
of languages, Khan academy educational videos, and other educational tools and
software. I created a list of 16
questions and arranged them in a grid with 4 different categories. The questions were designed to be difficult
enough so that the kids would have to use the laptops to look up the
answers. A sample question was “how big
is Haiti in kilometers?” The categories
were, the universe, Haiti facts, America facts, and Famous people. The kids went straight for the questions about
Haiti and searched the depths of Wikipedia for the answers. Each correct answer was met with a
celebration by the team receiving the points.
I asked a question about back home that I knew would be easy for the
kids to find; “What is the capital of Michigan?” They got searching and a kid
in the front row raised his hand. I
walked over to examine his answer. He
got to the page on Livonia, although his answer was wrong, it was cool to see
that he had a great enough access to information that if he wanted to he could
read all about Livonia Michigan, or the big bang theory, or general relativity,
or anything that might spark the imagination.
A few minutes later I heard one of the kids in the second row sound out
the correct answer. I awarded her team the points and with that they sealed the
win. The class came to an end and Bernadette came in to address the kids. They thanked me for being their guest teacher
and for the work I was doing repairing the laptops. I said goodbye and went back to get some rest
before my final day.
On the final day I met with the teachers of the XO
program. I explained to them how the
electrical system worked, and emphasized the importance of keeping everything
well maintained. One teacher especially seemed
very eager to learn and seemed to understand my explanation. I’m optimistic that when Sora and Nick arrive
in mid-December, there will be very few issues.
After we worked through that and I answered their questions, I met with
the star students of the XO program. I
taught one pair of kids how to disassemble the front of the laptop, and we
replaced a broken screen. The other
group learned how to disassemble the bottom of the laptop and we replaced a
keyboard. The kids were intrigued, and
their nimble hands made it easy for them to work on the tiny laptop. We put everything back together and had two
more working laptops. We cleaned up and I
left behind a screwdriver so that they could tinker. I could have spent the rest of my time in
Haiti at Lascahobas, fixing laptops, and teaching, but come Saturday it was
time to say goodbye.
Lascahobas provided some unique challenges that raised a lot
of frustrations, but reflecting on it, I’m optimistic for the kids. They have great leadership in Bernadette, and
they have some very able and willing teachers and students. I look forward to reading Sora and Nick’s
report after their visit. Now I am back
in Port-au-Prince where I will spend the next 10 days bouncing around the city
teaching and working on connectivity issues.
I arrived in Haiti 2 months ago today.
It’s been a wonderful journey and I have truly enjoyed both teaching and
learning everywhere I go. I look forward
to finishing strong.
Hang on,
Sean
No comments:
Post a Comment