The MAJOR problem is computer space. With more than 30 new students, we are running out of computers to work on. We went around the school yesterday trying to see how many more computers we could fit in. We will modify the existing table-desks so that they can hold three computers. With several new tables as well, we have room for about 20 more computers. Of course … room and budget to buy are two different things. Hopefully that can be solved.
The first table is now at the welders for modification. Between Santiago and I, I think the modification needs are clear. We will see later this morning.
The heads of two regions in the country – Comayagua and Cortes are both interested in our program and have promised support. They are desperate to find ways to offer more schooling to students without any increase in their budgets. They rarely get their complete budgets as it is.
In our area, there are a number of primary schools that have computers sitting idle. We may be able to get them working for our students. That is another exciting opportunity. People are now wanting to help us implement the program in their area.
Side news. I only have a few minutes today to talk so must hurry. I filled out the evaluation form for Natasha – a government program that is enabling Canadian students to work abroad for several months – a semester. It is a fantastic program because it pays their expenses. Only one tiny glitch. Their evaluation numbers are opposite to what I expected. Number 3 is the highest score and number 1 the lowest. Fortunately, I sent a copy of the evaluation to Natasha for approval before submission and she caught the error. ¨We´re number three, we´re number three¨. No wonder our athletes have trouble going for gold.
Yesterday, Santiago and I went to lay out a Mandala garden – a circular garden which utilizes about 80% of the space for growing (with nitrogen fixing ground cover on the pathways we will actually be in the 95% range). We left Marcos, another worker, with the task of planting the mulch plants around the perimter and in the pathways. We will see on Saturday how he fared. We will see in a month or two how the plants fared. The circle is 10 M diameter so is a fair size. I am confident that it will prove a good alternative method for cropping vegetables. A family with 16 of these circles could feed themselves and, likely, make a basic income from sales. We shall see what it looks like with vegeta bles. So much easier on paper.
As we turned a corner, a flash of white ran off the road into a stream bed. Split seconds later, we heard guns cocking and police came into sight. Another few seconds and a police pick up sped off. As it was on our way, naturally, we followed. A second corner and we saw the fugitive dashing through a cornfield. The police were out and after him, firing as they ran (not too effectively as nothing happened to the runner – however, having done hunting in the past, I know all too well what adrenalin does to your shooting ability). Very shortly they caught up with him and we moved on to the next scene of the day.
We are trying to download an antivirus program. Our first attempt didn´t work. We tried again last evening. I will see how the computer in the school fared. My computer here at home, failed at the first attempt – I checked at 1:30 a.m. but seems to have succeeded in round two. We have to burn a cd and then try it out.
That is about it for news today. Having some repair work done in my house so have to run and get that organized. Santiago is planting some mint and basil seeds and I need to see how that is going. They are so small it is difficult to work with them. Hopefully one or two will grow. We can grow others from cuttings.
Yeni, Carolina and Jessica are working on the digital library, Manuel working on registration and liasons with other groups, Edel is working on programming and mathematics. I hang around and look busy.
TTYL
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