Today,
the 31st May 2001, I taught my first practical computer class. It has taken
eight months but still I feel that we are getting somewhere. While most of the
class were away on a pastor's
retreat, about 12 came along today. We looked at the basics - how does a
mouse work, what's the Start button for, where's the F1 key etc.
On
Monday Andrew and I moved
the computers into their new temporary home at the diocesan offices. I was
hoping to move them straight into the vocational school but it was taking too
long to get the room finished. I taught a theory class in the vocational school
computer room this morning and they still need to put handles on the windows,
put sockets in the walls and paint on the walls. Halfway through the class the
power went of course so the usual nonsense continues unabated.
We now have seven of the computers up and running with MS Windows and MS
Word. Two of the computers have a hard disk controller problem and one is
missing its hard disk. The laptop which was donated by Tellabs Ireland still
needs to get software installed on it. I 
am
hoping to get those problems fixed while I am out here but if not then I may be
able to get them sorted when I am home for a couple of weeks' holidays in
August. I wasn't planning on being home at all before my time here ended, but if
I stay on a further six months the return leg of my flight would be wasted.
Besides a few weeks in Ireland in August would be very pleasant.
Other than all that life is fairly quiet here these days. The current rainy
season is coming to an end and we expect it to heat up again though not to the
same degree as it did in January. We had another great video night at my house
on Wednesday evening when we saw 'The Great Escape'. These 
video
nights are becoming a regular occurence now and the numbers present are
increasing all the time. On Wednesday we had Elodie from France, Maria from
Austria, Helen from England and Herman from Germany. Using the multimedia
projector which was donated by Phillips Ireland for my teaching, we beam the
biggest and best films onto my living room wall. As the picture is over six feet
across, the experince rivals any cinema trip back home. On the left you can see
a photo of when we watched 'Lord of the Flies'.