Central Office and Scheduling

GS Janja St. Jerome assigned us a central office space in which organizers could meet to plan activities and store equipment and teaching materials.  It served as our command headquarters. 

Elisabeth at work in the office with Louise (left, plugging in a device)

The photo reveals some essential items -- a roll of TP and drinking water -- both scarce resources.

Louise already mentioned that unreliable internet connectivity was a "challenge".  But electric power was also an issue except in the office and Salle. 

Sharing power in the office

We quickly learned to share both power (rotating devices on the one good power strip) and--when the wifi was up--bandwidth (turning off wifi on phones and laptops when not in active use and outlawing use of the G.S. Janja network when it was needed for classes). 

In the classrooms, power was problematic.  Not strong enough to keep some of the laptops charged in the robotics classrooms, we carried the laptops to the main office for recharging as needed (unfortunately, the old laptops we brought did not hold a charge for very long). 

We were dismayed when the projector that Liz brought from her school seemed to fail and were very grateful to Benjamin Roode for loaning us a projector and transformer from the U.S. Embassy (delivered along with the robot kits from IBM in a nick of time).  

But when the U.S. Embassy projector also did not work in the classroom, we realized that the problem was actually with the power.  Lessons in the classrooms would need to use the blackboard; anything requiring a projector would have to take place in the Salle or the Computing Lab.

By the end of the ToT, we had worked out a pretty robust schedule for the week of camp, including lead instructors, roles for teachers and volunteers, locations for all activities and lessons, and a visitor schedule.

Close to final schedule for the week of camp

Not shown on the schedule, everyday started with a shower of sorts--hot water delivered at 6:00 am in several 5 liter containers for the teachers and volunteers to divy up in shallow plastic buckets and mix with cold water from showers or the tap.  Breakfast was at 7:00 am--tea with milk and homemade bread.

Lights went out at 10:00 pm in the dorms.  But the day didn't end for teachers and organizers until after a final meeting to discuss what worked and did not work that day and to go over the schedule for the day ahead. Nominations were also taken for a student to recognize the next morning who demonstrated an exceptional quality that day and a family to carry the "Spirit Stick" the next day. We generally headed down to the dorms at the bottom of the hill around 10:45 pm with torches lighting the way.

Visitor Schedule