I spent the whole day today in the dingy room that’s now called the computer lab. Teachers come and go throughout the day. They often leave a class of 80 students alone in their rooms. The electric power comes and goes. No one knows why; it just does.

 “The printer is not connected. Check your cable connections.” The weakest link in computing technology is the printer. There are hundreds of moving parts. There are switches that turn on and off power when doors are open or paper jams. There is a cable that leads to the computer and another to a feeble power supply. And then there’s the software. Now Andrew wants the teachers to put all their final grades on spreadsheets. There are at least four different programs on these computers for spreadsheets and none of them are compatible with the others. But the look of delight on a young woman’s face when you show her what happens when you highlight a long column of numbers and hit the ∑ is priceless.

If Google News Uganda runs a story about an Egyptian woman who was turned into a snake, it has to be true, right? And if they include a link to a You Tube video of this creature with the head and torso of a woman and lower extremities of a snake, that’s absolute proof, right? 

So it took exactly three days for these teachers to go from “I’ve never touched a computer before” to Facebook and You Tube. Anyone surprised? It’s not easy to explain to someone who has never seen a Hollywood movie how computerized animation can look so real. “You mean it’s not true?” Just whom do you think they’re  going to believe, me or You Tube? It’s only a matter of days before they discover Porn.

Andrew, the assistant head master and social studies teacher at the school is totally hooked on on-line newspapers (which is how we got off on the snake-woman). Hussein loves the music videos and plays the same three over and over. But I think the coolest thing is simply e-mail. I must have signed a dozen teachers up for Gmail (pronounced “Geemail” as in Geezer) accounts. Then, of course, they have to write somebody a letter so they need an address. Mine. “Dear Todd, how are you? I am fine, Thank you, Ruth.” I reply: “Hello Ruth, I am happy to receive your e-mail. I’m fine too. Todd”. You would have thought I had parted the Red Sea. It’s the simple things.

Syntax and cultural differences make for other peculiarities: “How are you Todd dear? I am so glad you came to meet me. Feridah”

At noon, Maggie and Sarah brought into the computer room the kids who are involved in the “Stories Without Borders” project. At present, there are four sites for this project: North Port in Madison, Beaver Dam (Wisconsin), Huxian China, and Lweza Primary School in Mukono, Uganda. Maggie visited the Chinese students a few weeks ago and brought back the videos they had made of their world. (The Chinese are not permitted to upload video to an American web site.) The Lweza kids were spellbound, watching every second of the videos and straining to understand the Chinese students’ English. One of the videos was about finding the first signs of spring in Huxian. This brought forth all kinds of questions. The Ugandan children were incredulous that the leaves would all fall off the trees leaving the branches completely bare for several months. “How do you get food to eat?” I had my laptop with me and showed them pictures of a snowy Madison morning. “Do you have to stay indoors all the time?” I didn’t even attempt to tell them about all the fishermen (fisherpeople) out on the ice all winter. These were p6 students; only the best. The chosen few who have even the slightest chance of making it to university.

“Mzungu, Mzungu!” This is what children call whenever they see us walking. A pretty close translation would be “white person white person!”. Then they say “Oli otya?” (How are you?) to which we reply: “Gyendi. Bulungi.” (Fine. Have a nice day.)  This is always returned by a big smile. Children often walk behind us for a long way just to be in our company. And really, we’re just as interested in them as they in us.

Tomorrow afternoon we leave Mkono for Tororo in the far east along the Kenyan border. There is a secondary school there where the staff is going to show up on Saturday morning just to meet us. I will go down to Lweza Primary in the morning to finish working on one of the computers and say good-bye. The topic of good-bye came up this afternoon as I was working with a group of about seven teachers. I suddenly realized that they fully expect us to return next summer. There was no doubt about it. I muttered something about how expensive it is to travel from America (the U.S. is always referred to as “America” here). In a serious tone, Ruth replied, “We’ll pray for you.” This was echoed around the room. There was nothing I could say.

Now that the teachers here have lost their fear of computers, I foresee trouble. These computers are not going to last forever. With several users they will require maintenance. New used computers will need to be found (I think I got that right). I don’t know if it’s fair to step into this land, make all sorts of promises, and then move on. No legitimate act of kindness can ever be a one-time deal. Nice to know you; have a nice life. Commitment is a scary thing. We have been very cognizant of the ‘White folks coming from America to save the Black folks syndrome’. How’s that been working out for everybody?

Condescension is a slippery slope, but people here haven’t let that happen or it just doesn’t seem important. They are certainly curious of us as we are of them and they know we are learning from them as they from us. I don’t know what will happen in a month, or even tomorrow. We have exchanged emails and friended each other on Facebook. I can’t say whether or not we’ll be back next year. There are so many “it depends”.

No one has even once asked us for money or anything else. How would they even know what to ask for? I’m not sure we know what to ask for. Everyone is keenly aware that there is a world beyond the next hill; they just want very much to be a part of it. And we in our little group all feel the magnetism of this place and its people: The constant smoke from cooking fires, the thin and fragile electric power, the nightly malaria pill, the goats and roosters in the yard, the cow tied to a stake at the road, banana trees growing wherever they’ll root, and the call of children in every open doorway “Bzuku, Bzuku!”

As the dim lights flicker, die, and then return minutes later, it’s time for bed. The night is full of sound. When we were planning for Africa, the things I thought I’d most miss were my food and good beer, but now that I’m here the things I most miss are good electric lights and hot showers.

Bulungi!

And so there was morning and evening another day.