Cat + Cane + Teaching

Yesterday morning, I was making coffee, and turned around to see this little guy eating out of my dog's bowl.  So, I gave it half a sardine, and named it Mir.

Also, sugar cane harvesting is still going on. This is the before shot:

Then, they set fire to the fields. This is somewhat terrifying. It rains ash for a day or so, and the air is thick with the smell of molasses.

Next, machines cut it all down...

...and haul it out. About every 15 minutes, another truck goes by, shaking the ground like an earthquake.

Burn everything again! They did this to the field next to the school during the school hour, so all the kids and teachers went outside and blockaded the road and threw rocks at the cane trucks.

I can see Russia Tamayo from my house! Almost the entire valley is cut and burned now, and the dust storms are bad. The wind blows every day from around 1pm-5pm, and you can't open your eyes outside because of the dust. My red floor is brown, and everything is covered in a thick layer of dirt.

Grass would help hold the dust down in the batey, but people think it breeds mosquitoes. Whatever the goats and cows don't eat, they machete up. I got in trouble with my neighbors for not sweeping my dirt enough. I need to re-read the housing association bylaws.

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4 of my kids taught their first computer class. We planned out the lesson, and I practiced with each of them for the big day. They seemed set. It was curious, but not surprising, when they all decided to do completely different things during the class, and ignore any of the preparation we had done. But hey, they got up in front of the students and said something, and that was pretty great. It may not all have been accurate, or useful, but that all can come later. I can rationalize that this counted as teambuilding, leadership skills, public speaking, etc. 

They also critiqued the hell out of each other, which was way better than me telling them those things. They complained about the same things that I complain about--random people in their classroom, kids screaming, people trying to go on Facebook, students not paying attention--and it was pretty satisfying to sit back and see how they liked it on the other side.

Surprisingly, they want to ramp up and teach EVEN MORE. It has been really neat to see how fast they have progressed. Case in point-- Genito can set up Unreal Tournament LAN parties, and kicks my ass. The game is IN ENGLISH, but he figured out how to do everything. Also, his typing has gone from 4 words/minute to 20, probably due to Facebook chatting. I taught some youth how to do basic things in Adobe Premiere Pro, and this one kid spends hours each day cutting dembo dancing clips together. I'll post it when he's done.

Today, we built a network

This morning, Emilio stopped by my house while I was making coffee, and I taught him how to strip. Ethernet cables. You see, today was the day I started teaching my youth about computer networking.

Back before the holidays, I got a 16-port DLink switch, a box of CAT-5e cable, and a little bag of Ethernet terminators from World Vision. I had solicited this stuff because the 3g modem/Wi-Fi router we have been using can’t handle 15 connections (and is really only supposed to support 4 computers). While running Ethernet cables all over my lab isn’t very pretty, it is far more reliable than Wi-Fi, and should hold up better over time. Ethernet cards are much cheaper to buy here than new Wi-Fi antennas and cards if they break—they even sell them in Tamayo.

I showed my kids how to strip wires using a crimper tool instead of a machete or their teeth, and tried to explain the importance of twisted pairs and putting the 8 wires in the Ethernet cable in the correct order before you crimp the terminator. The theory part lost out to the I WANT TO USE THE COOL TOOL part, but all the cables they churned out worked just fine. Also, explaining this all in Spanish was a little hard. “Ok, now press the tool down on the plastic thing, and look how the little knives bite the little wires.”

Emilio measured out, cut, stripped, and crimped cables to connect 5 computers before he had to go bring in the cows. He also showed three other guys how to do it, and they made cables that worked. Every time they plugged a new computer into the switch, they smiled and clapped when the three flashing green lights came on.

Back during college, I used to work in this labyrinth of an office in the basement of Swain hall. We moved around some workstations to make room for more people, and I ran ethernet cables all over the place. Another time, I helped install security cameras in the art building, and had to run cables through the ceiling, across hallways, through offices, and finally to the networking closet. I made cables for new classrooms when we brought them online, and later for the labs when old cables got damaged or frayed.

In high school, we added on a sunroom to our house, so I took the opportunity to install ethernet jacks in the walls, and ran wires through the walls to the living room, new sunroom, my room, and my sister’s room.

I don’t really remember how I learned to do all that stuff. I was geeky (ok, maybe I still am), looked it up online, and did it. That’s the same way I learned to shave and tie a tie. I like creating things and connecting things, and networking does a good job of both.

So, this is a lot of work, but it vale la pena. I use two major programs to manage the lab, and without them, life would be much harder (and has been, since the Wi-Fi is flojo).

1. Control de Ciber (Cyber Control), a decent ad-supported internet café client that tracks time and lets you lock out and disable computers remotely. The new version has huge banner ads and changes all the defaults to Yahoo, which is a pain, but…. it is free!

2. Netsupport School, which lets you display the same image across every computer screen. We don’t have a projector, but this way, we can teach classes and control access to programs and websites during classes.

These work about half the time, because they require a reliable network. When the new network is up, they should be rock solid. Also, we’ll be able to have LAN parties!