Kigali is definitely a place I would like to visit again. The city is clean and the people are nice although I would like to know some French to better communicate. The only beggars in the city that I saw were children and none appeared to need to beg, all looked well nourished and were playful until they saw us Mzungus and put on their “please sir, I’m hungry” act.
Getting around was very easy although the Motos only know a select few destinations. Bartering for a decent price was a different story. Upon seeing Mzungus (white people) they would start over quoting despite us knowing what the correct rate would be. This got to be annoying if you really wanted to get somewhere and didn’t want to barter for 5 minutes.
Without valuable natural resources the country is moving to become a technical hub for the East African region. The city has a long way to go but is taking the correct steps to achieve their 2020 vision. I’m excited to take William Watkins to see Rwanda sometime in the future.
-XO Mike
Showing posts with label Kigali. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kigali. Show all posts
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Sunday, June 14, 2009
TiA
Today we were scheduled to visit several schools throughout Rwanda and teach teachers how to use Scratch (an animation/math/programming application). The day did not go as planned; This is Africa (TiA) as we have learned to call it.
At 4:45am we awoke from our night at the Casino and headed down to the bus which was expected to arrive at 5:35 for our breakfast at the Hilltop Hotel. Our busses were expected to leave for our school sites at 6:30. 5:35 came and went… 5:45… 6:00… 6:15… 6:30… 6:40 the bus comes to take us to Hilltop and we are almost expecting our busses to have left by now. We sat down and ate while we waited for the busses to get ready to leave, they still weren’t ready to go to the sites. Our sheet said we would leave for the site at 6:30 and arrive at 8. We left at 6:50 and arrived at 7. WHAT???
Children begin bringing in desks to prepare our room and about 8am teachers start arriving. The morning was incredibly slow as the teachers had not touched an XO before (or even a computer) and Scratch is a very advanced program. We spent three full hours grinding away before we started to make any progress and broke for lunch at noon. We had two hours for lunch as everyone goes home and we walked to our contact’s house nearby to wait for the food which was late and was expected to arrive at noon. 12:15… 12:30… 12:45… 1:00… 1:15… 1:30… This entire time the company is telling us 5 more minutes every five minutes we call. Our OLPC contacts finally give up and go out and buy us lunch which arrives at 1:45. We eat and head back to school to see our food arriving at 2; TiA.
All of the teachers are arriving at this point and the food at the same time just creates confusion. The delivery company won’t leave until we drink all the sodas because they need to return the glass bottles so we give what’s left away to the teachers. At about 2:40 we can finally start on the second half of the day and the teachers ask to review other applications. We introduced Record (the camera program), Write, Paint and a few others and this part went really well. Teachers were trying new things and teaching each other as they learned.
Throughout the day as we saw kids I was snapping pictures of them and they LOVE to see their pictures. Justin, a kid from the University of Minnesota deploying in Senegal, took a picture of about 30 kids and knelt down to show them and he got swarmed. I have a picture of him in the center of a million heads. On Monday we will be working with 5th grade kids handing out laptops and it should make for a lot more good pictures.
TiA
-XO Mike
At 4:45am we awoke from our night at the Casino and headed down to the bus which was expected to arrive at 5:35 for our breakfast at the Hilltop Hotel. Our busses were expected to leave for our school sites at 6:30. 5:35 came and went… 5:45… 6:00… 6:15… 6:30… 6:40 the bus comes to take us to Hilltop and we are almost expecting our busses to have left by now. We sat down and ate while we waited for the busses to get ready to leave, they still weren’t ready to go to the sites. Our sheet said we would leave for the site at 6:30 and arrive at 8. We left at 6:50 and arrived at 7. WHAT???
Children begin bringing in desks to prepare our room and about 8am teachers start arriving. The morning was incredibly slow as the teachers had not touched an XO before (or even a computer) and Scratch is a very advanced program. We spent three full hours grinding away before we started to make any progress and broke for lunch at noon. We had two hours for lunch as everyone goes home and we walked to our contact’s house nearby to wait for the food which was late and was expected to arrive at noon. 12:15… 12:30… 12:45… 1:00… 1:15… 1:30… This entire time the company is telling us 5 more minutes every five minutes we call. Our OLPC contacts finally give up and go out and buy us lunch which arrives at 1:45. We eat and head back to school to see our food arriving at 2; TiA.
All of the teachers are arriving at this point and the food at the same time just creates confusion. The delivery company won’t leave until we drink all the sodas because they need to return the glass bottles so we give what’s left away to the teachers. At about 2:40 we can finally start on the second half of the day and the teachers ask to review other applications. We introduced Record (the camera program), Write, Paint and a few others and this part went really well. Teachers were trying new things and teaching each other as they learned.
Throughout the day as we saw kids I was snapping pictures of them and they LOVE to see their pictures. Justin, a kid from the University of Minnesota deploying in Senegal, took a picture of about 30 kids and knelt down to show them and he got swarmed. I have a picture of him in the center of a million heads. On Monday we will be working with 5th grade kids handing out laptops and it should make for a lot more good pictures.
TiA
-XO Mike
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Quick Thoughts
Sorry for the posting schedule. We hardly have any free time. I've been writing on my computer and I copy paste whenever I have a chance.
Pictures won't happen while I'm here because the internet is too slow. Sorry that the post's aren't as interesting.
-XO Mike
Pictures won't happen while I'm here because the internet is too slow. Sorry that the post's aren't as interesting.
-XO Mike
The time I met two of Time’s 100 Most Influential People
Starting a day at 4:30am and ending with cocktails and playing drums for a traditional Rwandan dance group were two things I never expected to do in one day.
Today we were scheduled to go to a meeting for OLPC for the launch of OLPCorps and The Center for Laptops and Learning in Kigali. We knew going into the day that there would be high security (read: guys with AKs everywhere) and airport like security screening so we were told that we would be on a bus by 6:30 which meant breakfast would be at 5:30 and we would leave our hotel at 5:15. At 5:15 we were all ready but no busses arrived until 6am. It was fine and we arrived at the Prime Holdings Conference Hall at 7am; one full hour before our scheduled arrival time on the itinerary we received at the conference hall. Our itinerary included the arrival of ministers, arrival of the Prime Minister, arrival of the Supreme Court President, arrival of the Senate President and arrival of the guest of honor which was later announced to be the President of Rwanda.
The President arrived to a receiving room of approximately 200-300 people and after hearing the national anthem, addressed both the OLPCorps participants (me) and the other dignitaries in the room. After his and several others speeches we went out to have brunch. To my surprise the President met us in the gardens and chatted it up with other big wigs. Many of the OLPCorps members joked about going up and saying hi to him but after a while he came and approached us with Nicholas Negroponte, the chairman of OLPC and another of Time’s 100 most influential people.
After brunch and meeting the President and Chairman there were speakers from both Uruguay, where they have deployed over 200,000 laptops and are at 1:1 for the entire country grades 1 through 9, and Haiti where they are deploying three large test schools with XO laptops. After lunch the day became quite long as we had been up since 4:30 and it was a bit of a blur until about 4:30 when another member of OLPC started a speech talking to various diplomats from Kenya, Djibouti, Mali, and Tanzania who were all interested in starting nationwide XO deployments.
After the conference and several commitments from diplomats to begin establishing XO rollouts we went back to the gardens for cocktails and a traditional Rwandese dance performance. While drinking a $150 box of wine (OLPC provided but ordered on accident and imported from South Africa – it should be around $8) I started to hear singing and drums with the approaching sound of many bells in rhythm. Before I knew it I was standing in front of 10 dancers dressed in traditional Rwandese outfits doing choreographed dancing. It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. After a song the boys switched for girl dancers and back and forth a few times. When they were done all of the OLPCorps and big wigs mingled for an hour or two before the dancers started up again. This time the crowd was even more into it and before long many OLPCorps members were in the group trying to dance along as best as possible. Although I didn’t dance with the group I did play drums for a while which was really fun as the whole group wasn’t necessarily precise although they were in time and together, mostly.
After the events Corey and I went to Hilltop (one of the other OLPCorps hotels where we get our dinner) grabed a bite with two UCal Berkeley girls deploying in Uganda before walking back to our hotel (about a 20 minute walk). This city is a wonderful place and is very calm, safe and clean.
And now to wake up at 6:45am! Woooooohoooo!
-XO Mike
P.S. Sorry the posts are becoming long but there is so much we experience in a day it is hard to even make it this short.
Today we were scheduled to go to a meeting for OLPC for the launch of OLPCorps and The Center for Laptops and Learning in Kigali. We knew going into the day that there would be high security (read: guys with AKs everywhere) and airport like security screening so we were told that we would be on a bus by 6:30 which meant breakfast would be at 5:30 and we would leave our hotel at 5:15. At 5:15 we were all ready but no busses arrived until 6am. It was fine and we arrived at the Prime Holdings Conference Hall at 7am; one full hour before our scheduled arrival time on the itinerary we received at the conference hall. Our itinerary included the arrival of ministers, arrival of the Prime Minister, arrival of the Supreme Court President, arrival of the Senate President and arrival of the guest of honor which was later announced to be the President of Rwanda.
The President arrived to a receiving room of approximately 200-300 people and after hearing the national anthem, addressed both the OLPCorps participants (me) and the other dignitaries in the room. After his and several others speeches we went out to have brunch. To my surprise the President met us in the gardens and chatted it up with other big wigs. Many of the OLPCorps members joked about going up and saying hi to him but after a while he came and approached us with Nicholas Negroponte, the chairman of OLPC and another of Time’s 100 most influential people.
After brunch and meeting the President and Chairman there were speakers from both Uruguay, where they have deployed over 200,000 laptops and are at 1:1 for the entire country grades 1 through 9, and Haiti where they are deploying three large test schools with XO laptops. After lunch the day became quite long as we had been up since 4:30 and it was a bit of a blur until about 4:30 when another member of OLPC started a speech talking to various diplomats from Kenya, Djibouti, Mali, and Tanzania who were all interested in starting nationwide XO deployments.
After the conference and several commitments from diplomats to begin establishing XO rollouts we went back to the gardens for cocktails and a traditional Rwandese dance performance. While drinking a $150 box of wine (OLPC provided but ordered on accident and imported from South Africa – it should be around $8) I started to hear singing and drums with the approaching sound of many bells in rhythm. Before I knew it I was standing in front of 10 dancers dressed in traditional Rwandese outfits doing choreographed dancing. It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. After a song the boys switched for girl dancers and back and forth a few times. When they were done all of the OLPCorps and big wigs mingled for an hour or two before the dancers started up again. This time the crowd was even more into it and before long many OLPCorps members were in the group trying to dance along as best as possible. Although I didn’t dance with the group I did play drums for a while which was really fun as the whole group wasn’t necessarily precise although they were in time and together, mostly.
After the events Corey and I went to Hilltop (one of the other OLPCorps hotels where we get our dinner) grabed a bite with two UCal Berkeley girls deploying in Uganda before walking back to our hotel (about a 20 minute walk). This city is a wonderful place and is very calm, safe and clean.
And now to wake up at 6:45am! Woooooohoooo!
-XO Mike
P.S. Sorry the posts are becoming long but there is so much we experience in a day it is hard to even make it this short.
Kigali Day 1
We departed for another hotel where we would eat breakfast at 7:15 and breakfast was quite good; lots of bread, fruit and eggs (omelet or hard boiled). We met a few more teams at breakfast and eventually headed to the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (KIST). Kist has a beautiful campus and large, modern buildings. On the drive over I, and almost everyone else, recognized how clean Kigali is, much cleaner than any American city. There were lots of workers tending to beautiful flowers along the road and sweeping dust off of the sidewalks. Many cars had I <3 Rwanda stickers across the back and in just a somewhat short drive it was obvious that the people of Rwanda take a lot of pride in their country and community. We also heard that the last Saturday of every month is a national cleaning holiday. All streets are closed and businesses and taxis are not allowed to operate until noon. Everyone just goes out and cleans. There is no trash in this city.
We had meetings all day and left for happy hour and dinner at a local bar around 5. Everyone was exhausted but it was great getting to meet people from all over the world with different plans throughout Africa. Tomorrow we are meeting a lot of dignitaries from across Africa but no one will say exactly who, my guess is that it is someone big if they aren’t saying because of security reasons. We are waking up at 4:30 (I’m writing this at 8:30) to leave our hotel at 5:15 for breakfast. Sooooo tired still but I’m not yet sick! :-)
-XO Mike
We had meetings all day and left for happy hour and dinner at a local bar around 5. Everyone was exhausted but it was great getting to meet people from all over the world with different plans throughout Africa. Tomorrow we are meeting a lot of dignitaries from across Africa but no one will say exactly who, my guess is that it is someone big if they aren’t saying because of security reasons. We are waking up at 4:30 (I’m writing this at 8:30) to leave our hotel at 5:15 for breakfast. Sooooo tired still but I’m not yet sick! :-)
-XO Mike
Friday, May 15, 2009
Extra Equipment
We are still planning away and have narrowed down our deployment to cover no more than 5 sites. We looked into adding printers for our deployment but have rejected the idea because the XO operating system does not offer print options such as "File>Print".
I was excited to hear about the new equipment we will be receiving in Kigali. We will be receiving an XS which is a server for the XO laptops.
The XS server. It is quite small, about the size of a piece of paper and two inches thick. It weighs only five pounds and uses the case as a heatsink to eliminate fans which can wear out and get dust in the system.
I was excited to hear about the new equipment we will be receiving in Kigali. We will be receiving an XS which is a server for the XO laptops.
The XS server. It is quite small, about the size of a piece of paper and two inches thick. It weighs only five pounds and uses the case as a heatsink to eliminate fans which can wear out and get dust in the system.Another tool which we will be using during the trip is a Flip HD camera which OLPC will be providing on loan for the summer. The Flip HD camera is a micro camcorder which records 720p HD video onto digital memory and can be imported to the computer using the onboard USB plug.
The camera is really small but records good quality video. To get a perspective of scall, look at the USB plug in relation to the entire camera. It's a standard USB plug!
The camera is really small but records good quality video. To get a perspective of scall, look at the USB plug in relation to the entire camera. It's a standard USB plug!That's all for today. We had a meeting with our "boss" at OLPC yesterday and he also thinks we are on a path to success.
-XO Mike
-XO Mike
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