Alimou and I have been in Rwanda for almost seven weeks now, and everything is going quite well.  We are working hard to complete the proposed tasks, and at the same time we are having a great time.  Last week we worked with IT club students on building the computer lab.

It’s been a real pleasure working with them, and we are looking forward to our next meeting

When I’m not working on our task, I join in my family activities, such as helping out in the farm.  There I had to do something that I imagined I’d never do in my life.  I had to move natural fertilizers with my hands.  It really wasn’t easy in the beginning, but once I got used to it, it wasn’t so bad.  I wish I never have to do them again though.

I changed my hair style to a more local style.  When I go down to the local market, people literally stop their work to stare.  Then some laugh, some give me thumbs-up, and some come over to greet me enthusiastically.

The first and short term phase is refactoring DART’s code so it can be used by other school districts with similar needs. This will allow us to expand DART community of users beyond BSSD. The second and long term phase is developing a new DART, as a highly extendable SIS, and creating an open source platform that will allow its expansion by adding extensions to it. This new development will require more time than our project extension, but we are working on setting the foundation for this process.

Right now we are now working on both phases, there is a lot to do and not much time. However, not everything is work here in Unalakleet. We have also enjoyed some outdoor time. We’ve gone fishing (well, Bolek fishes and I watch, but I’ve been there) and gone for a drive in a four wheeler. Last week Dorothy, who works at the BSSD, took us boating with her family. The view was amazing (and also the salmon we caught and ate later).

Buffalo

Tanzania on the other side of the lake

Giraffes

Here’s a video of zebras.

Hakuna Matata!

Melissa arrived in Manila on Sunday, and I arrived the following day. Joaquin Palencia picked us up and took us out to a great lunch at the University of the Philippines and then we spent the rest of the day walking around the mall. The next day we met up with Melissa’s uncle Tito Ning, a very talented pool player and bar owner, who took us around to lots of cool places around Manila.

We first went to Dampa seafood place where Tito Ning treated us to one of the best lunches I’ve ever eaten in my life. Here’s the way Dampa seafood works: You first go to the fish market and pick out the freshest seafood of the day. You then bring it to the restaurant next door where they cook it up for you in the most divine sauces you can imagine. Melissa’s uncle picked out fish, squid, mussels, crab and prawns. A massive feast for just the three of us!

Shrimp in a tangy orange sauce, crab in coconut curry, mussels and crunchy calamari. And fresh coconut juice!

After our meal we went to the uncle’s house for several rounds of pool. Needless to say I got my butt kicked badly, but I did learn a lot of new tricks for making better shots. After pool, Tito Ning continued to show us more of the city at night. We went to a church and statue of Rizal, and then to a  fountain / water show that spouted water in sync with lights and pop  music. Celine Dion’s famous ‘My Heart Will Go On’ started playing, and Melissa and I started singing along when all of a sudden a scruffy looking toothless guy walked past us and said, “Hello Jack, Hello Rose!”  …that really cracked us up and left us with a satisfying day full of fun, good eats, and adventure.

The day after we headed out on a bus to Daet – a lengthy 10-hour trip, but we were entertained by the movies playing on a little TV in front of the bus – lots and lots of B-rated 80′s movies like NAVY SEALS and communist Philipino war movies. After arriving in Daet we met Dr. Bong Palencia and Gerry, the Dean of Computer Science students. We then settled into our dorms and walked around the town center.

That weekend we went on a wonderful outing with the school to a piece of land next to a river the Palencias own. We all went swimming in the refreshing river to escape the extremely hot and humid weather, and Jeremy went cliff jumping further up the river. Some of the staff were kind enough to share shrimp and pork adobo they brought with them for an afternoon snack.

It’s been a lot of fun hanging out with teachers from the school. We’ve enjoyed going out for karaoke and drinks with Gerry, Poly, Dario and Eric. Melissa and I both celebrated our birthdays last week and the office here treated us to ice cream and Pansit – noodles sort of like chicken lo-mein.

We’ve also visited the lovely Bagasbas beach, only a 10-minute tricycle ride from our dorms. I’ve been strapping my board to the top of a tricycle and heading down to surf almost every morning, and have already made some friends with the local surf bums.

local surfers Cisco and Allen Jay

The waves here have been pretty small, but I can’t complain when the water temperature is 84 degrees! That’s amazing compared to the frigid wetsuit-only California waters.  Fingers crossed for a big swell this weekend!

This past weekend we took a trip down to Naga, a city 2 hours south of Daet. We went to the CWC – Camarines Sur Wakeboarding complex and had a blast wakeboarding and kneeboarding! I’ll post some videos of our mad wakeboarding skills later.

In terms of work, we’ve been making significant progress assessing the organizational structure and enrollment process of OLLCF (Our Lady Lourdes College Foundation). We’ve held interviews with the registrar, accounting office, deans, and old and new students. The registration process is pretty complicated, and students have to spend about an hour and a half going back and forth between teachers, deans, the registrar and the accounting office to enroll into classes. With the information we’ve collected, Melissa mapped out flow and sequence models to give us a visual representation of the data, which will help us gain a better understanding of the entire process.

Before we can develop any kind of information system, there are a couple things we see that definitely need to be addressed. To begin, both the accounting office and registrar have no internet access, and the entire campus internet bandwidth is extremely slow, so our priority this week is to hold a meeting with the local ISP and get the whole campus online. Another problem we’ve noticed is that most of the registration process is done manually, with stacks and stacks of papers piled up every where. To speed up this process we plan on making a simple database with Microsoft Access so the registrar and accounting can quickly pull up student information. A lot of data is stored on Excel spreadsheets, which can be imported into Access easily.

Whatever we do, we are choosing to stick with a low-tech solution and tackle small problems one at a time – good advice from Professor Randy Weinberg when he visited this past week. From what we see there is not enough infrastructure to support a complex school information system so our goal is to provide a stronger base for future TCinGC teams to expand upon. Providing good internet access and digitizing the paper data seems like a good place to start!

There are still many things for us to see and do – Jeremy plans on joining OLLCF’s soccer team practices and learning Eskrima (or Arnis) – a Philipino martial art using bamboo/wooden sticks for self-defense, and Melissa might try playing with the volleyball team. See you until next time!

-Jeremy and Melissa

We arrived on the 16th of May at Anchorage just before midnight. Since the days get very long in the north, it was still quite bright outside and if I were in Pittsburgh I would easily say it isn’t later than 6pm. Our first night we spent at the “Captain Cook Hotel” which is considered as one of the nicest in town. From our rooms we had in insanely beautiful view on the mountains and ocean.

View from my room at Captain Cook Hotel

The next day we had a small trip to Seward. We drove with our partner through incredible Alaskan mountain/fjord sceneries.

Road to Seward

In Seward we met Dr Alex Hills and had some really great time discussing our project organizational issues while exploring Alaskan nature. We also had a chance of trying some of the fantastic Alaskan fresh seafood: Halibut cheeks (Yammy! .. really), shrimps, crab meat etc.

Sea Lions at the Resurrection Bay

Exploring the resurrection bay

That day I learned all the possible species of salmon found in Alaska:

sockeye (red salmon), champ(dog salmon), humpback(pink salmon), chinook(king salmon) and blackmouth(silver salmon)

18th of May

Again we had a chance to see the gorgeous views when riding back to Anchorage. This day was a tough one for us. Since we had to make grocery shopping for our 9 week stay in the “bush” (areas in Alaska that aren’t connected to the national road network – basically extremely remote). As a daily visitor at Giant Eagle in Pittsburgh,  having to buy 25 pounds of meat, numerous bags of pasta, beverages and many more other stuff, it was a hard exam on my estimation skills – see whether made them right

At the end of the day we spent over 2 hours at the post office at the Anchorage airport packing and than waiting in a huge line (some Business Process Modelling would be there) to ship our boxes to Unalakleet – our project destination.

On the road back to Anchorage

Ready to go to the bush

19th of May

Time to go to the wild bush. On a PenAir plane we flew other to Unalakleet. Quite excited we recognized the village from air and successfully landed at the “huge” airport.

Unalakleet from air

Baggage handling system

Unalakleet, kids on skateboards

We are in the bush. Literally, it is mind blowing!!!

20th of May

Director of Educational Technology organized a trip to four remote villages (Saint Michael, Stebbins, White Mountain and Nome) where the Bering Strait School District operates (our client).  We had a chance to talk with principles, teachers and administrators who use the developed by BSSD Student Information System – DART for which we are supposed to make an open source strategy. We also had some marvelous time flying on a smaller aircraft owned by BSSD.

I had an opportunity to sit on the co-pilot seat ... and push buttons!!!

All of the schools are an important place for each of the villages. Those schools play a role of a community center. They are incredibly equipped – all teachers have MacBooks, classrooms have SmartBoards and in overall the buildings are really nice.

Stebbins

White Mountain School

On our way back to Unalakleet, the plane was so packed with freight,  that I had to jump into it through the front tiny pilot window … only in Alaska

I am aware I am a little bit behind schedule with posting you my experiences … I hope to make it up .. in the meantime jumping out to take more photos …

More to come – more about our project, fishing and my first catch, four wheeler tundra driving and picking up skills in fire arms, so keep us tracking

My name is Alimou, and I am a graduate student at the Heinz School of Information Systems & Management. Rwanda is a country located in East Africa. It shares borders with Burundi, Congo, Uganda, and Tanzania. There are 11 million people living in Rwanda. Kigali is the capital and the  largest city. There are three languages spoken here: Kinyarwanda, English, and French. Rwanda is also called the land of a thousand hills because the land is engulfed by hills. I have not seen a plateau yet. There are hills everywhere.

Agahozo–Shalom Youth Village (ASYV) is the community partner. ASYV is located 45 minutes away from Kigali. It is a residential community, and it was founded two years ago with the goal of educating and nurturing young Rwandans who have lived through great hardship (http://goo.gl/OQ265).

Since we arrived, Jin Seop and I have been working enthusiastically with the good folks at Liquidnet and Mike (the ASYV IT Volunteer). Liquidnet has committed its human capital, a portion of its revenues, and expertise to social causes, and ASYV is their signature cause. They are here for just one week. Many tasks have been accomplished. We have been troubleshooting the wireless network, configuring servers, doing IT support, climbing roofs (seriously- see pictures below), and much more…

The real work will start in the next couple of days when Jin Seop and I start addressing the many challenges (we have identified) and the question of sustainability as well. More details about the work, the place, and many other things will be included in subsequent posts, but in the meantime enjoy the pictures below. “A picture is worth a thousand words.”

fixing the nano

fixing the antenna on the roof

Jin Seop on the roof looking for the access point (AP)

Jin Seop and Liquidnet group working on the AP

Having "brochettes" for lunch after working on the roof

(What are “brochettes”? Click here to find out.)

Waiting for the "brochettes"

Working on another antenna

IT Support - Fixing the computer of a faculty member at 8 AM.

Chloe, Amin and I left Pittsburgh on the afternoon of Monday the 16th. After almost 24 hours in the air with stopovers in Charlotte, Los Angeles, and Auckland, New Zealand, we finally arrived in Rarotonga on Tuesday night, Hawaiian-Aleutian time.

Rarotonga is very beautiful. We’re surrounded by blue ocean, green mountains, coconut trees and many nice people. The weather here is lovely compared to Pittsburgh — it’s warm and sunny during the daytime and cool during the night, with the occasional tropical rain.

This is our cute little house:

Besides the wild rooster cries and dogs barking in the middle of the night when we’re trying to sleep, it is very peaceful here.

And this is a cat that shows up at our house everyday and is always trying to get our attention and go inside. We speculate that whoever lived in the house previously was his former owner. Although we won’t let him in, he has unofficially become our pet.

Our work schedule is Monday to Friday from around 8:30 or 9 am to 4 pm. The three of us are all working at different government ministries. Chloe is with the Ministry of Agriculture, Amin is with the Ministry of Marine Resources, and I’m with the Ministry of Transport. The Ministry of Transport’s office is located by a harbor.

I’ve spent the past week getting to know the Ministry and its current technology problems. The Ministry is responsible for the safety and efficiency of Cook Islands aviation and maritime activities. It is handled by 9 staff members who are using a network drive to share a large amount of documents and spreadsheets. Unfortunately, the shared file system is poorly organized with little search capability, making it inefficient for the staff to retrieve the files they’re looking for. They’ve proposed an intranet as a solution to improve the system. Other potential deliverables include a public website allowing the Ministry to make documents, forms and legislations available online, and an improved database management system to make data entry and maintainance easier. I will be spending the next week determining the best possible solutions for the Ministry and developing a scope of work for the rest of my time here.

After work, Chloe, Amin and I have generally spent our free time driving around the island, going grocery shopping, playing games at home and watching House.

Saturday morning, we went on a cross-island hike with a group of political science students from Brigham Young University-Hawaii, who are also here working for various ministries. The hike was long and tiring but an absolutely incredible experience. We climbed all the way up a mountain to the base of Te Rua Manga (aka The Needle), then down to Papua Falls on the other side of the island. Grabbing onto rocks and trees, sliding down muddy slopes, wading through creeks — it was quite the adventure. Here is a selection of photos to give you a taste of our experience:

And that wraps up our first week in Rarotonga. Stay tuned!

Beginning is easy – continuing hard

(Japanese Quote)

First post, first blog, first time in Chicago, first time in Seattle, will be my first time in Alaska. So many first times for only one day and amazing more to come in the next 10 weeks which we (Bolek & Cristina) will spend helping the Bering Strait School District.

Currently we are sitting at the Seattle airport. We already had one stop in Chicago – quite short.
Alaska Airlines are amazing, not only they have a great customer service, they also arrive before time (over ~30min).

Keep track of our posts, photos and many stories which we hope to share in endless amounts in the nearest weeks !!!

Wish us luck!

Bolek

Work has been good; I’ve personally been doing a lot of coding. Like I’ve mentioned previously, we’re working with an open-source system that is heavily customized. Looking back, I remember us considering creating our own system from scratch. I think we made the right decision, as I realize now just how much work and how many lines of code have to go into a system in order for it to work properly and fulfill the needs of its users. There are so many situations to account for, I think it was smart to take an existing system and modify it to our needs, as it was open source. Now, we’ve created a system together with the college to make it useful and sustainable once we are gone. We also know that the potential success of fully implementing the system cannot rest solely on our shoulders, so the rest of our time working will primarily be focused on documentation and user training. All along, we have been meeting with stakeholders in the project, and Rana and Stephanie have been doing a lot of documentation, it’s important to be extremely thorough (yet still easy to follow) in our walkthroughs and guides.

Outside of work, I’ve been trying to stay in touch with news and happenings around the world and in the USA. The Internet makes it incredibly easy to keep up with everything and keep in touch with my family and friends. I’ve thought about just how different things would be without this constant connection, especially since the technology really hasn’t been around in popular use for that long, relatively speaking.

We’ve also been able to do more activities on the weekends. We all went back to the restaurant that has live music and sat around, talked, and tried new and delicious food. I was able to hang around with some of the teachers a little more at the other house on the hospital campus that doubles as the rehab facility, watching movies and singing karaoke. Another night, Bryan, a student we’re good friends with, brought over a copy of Slumdog Millionaire and we watched it on the roof area using Gerry’s projector. Abhinav was able to explain some of the story and background in more detail, which was cool. Afterwards, we watched Zoolander since Rana had never seen it, and it was funny. Another day, we also played some more badminton, which was a lot of fun. I’ve also hung out with Von and some of the other students, which is nice to take a break, get a snack, and unwind. Abhinav and I also got to play with Ruthy, who is Richard’s daughter and a very cute little girl. Ruthy is so friendly and fun, but doesn’t speak English that well and it’s interesting to see her not really understand why we won’t ever listen to her! I have good memories of hanging around, just watching boxing with the guys.

Another fun night was the Acquaintance Party, which is a party and induction ceremony hosted every year by the Computer Studies department. After a welcome from the dean and some teachers, as well as a guest speaker, the newly elected officers were sworn in. There was a delicious meal provided, and a lot of prizes were given out throughout the night. There were also a few different games. One involved one partner trying to guess a phrase held behind him by asking yes and no questions to his partner, who could see the phrase. Another was a race involving popping a balloon in a chair and answering a riddle. Somehow I ended up playing a game where the first person started by singing part of a song, and the next person had to sing another song that started with the last word of the previous song. It sounds easier than it is – being on-the-spot like that was difficult, even though I lasted a few rounds. The most exciting parts were probably the intermission performances! One group of four students did a choreographed dance to “Down” by Jay Sean, which was really good. Abhinav did a performance of two songs, “I Hate Love Stories” and “Dus Bahane” – both in Hindi – which were also cool. But, the most absurd part of the night was when two first year students came up to perform a song. They were two girls I knew and recognized, since they liked to always call out my name and wave at me every time they saw me, so I was somewhat expecting to be acknowledged in some way during the song. I really wasn’t expecting one of the girls to walk over to me, grab my hand, walk me out to the dance floor, and sing the song “Destiny” by Jim Brickman to me. A very surreal experience!

After that, Stephanie and Rana hung out more with Ryan, an English teacher, while Abhinav and I went out with Gerry, Richard, as well as CS students like Bryan, Shiela, Von, Christine, Gracie, Jessica, Via, and even more. We went to a place right at Bagasbas Beach that had a big table for us and also videoke, where we stayed for much of the night, talking and singing and having a good time.

This past weekend, Abhinav and I also got to go and have lunch and spend some time with the Palencias at the boat dock on the way to Calaguas, which was nice. A few weeks ago, we also experienced Typhoon Basyang, internationally named Conson. The college cancelled class for the second half of the day and there was a lot of heavy rain and strong wind. Luckily, it didn’t affect our lives much more than a few power outages, but recent news articles say that at least 76 people have been confirmed dead. This high number was due to inadequate warning of the path of the tropical storm, expected to hit a different part of the Philippines. So, a large number of people were surprised, including many fishermen, who were out as the storm hit. The Palencias told us that several people from the Calaguas islands were among those fishing at the time (without any radio capabilities on board) and after a part of their boat broke off, several men survived for over three days on a makeshift bamboo raft with no food or water, and sadly some others tried to swim for shore but never made it. It’s a disturbing story and it’s too bad that there wasn’t better forecasting and a higher degree of communication for warnings and alerts.

This weekend coming up is our last one with everyone! I’m sure we’ll all go out for dinner and have a fun night. We’re also set to go to Naga City for the CWC – the Camsur Watersports Complex – for some wakeboarding on Saturday. Friday is also the fourth annual Robotex, which I know Gerry and other CS people are putting a lot of work into. Abhinav is also contributing with a Lego Mindstorms Robot and input on competitions and event details. I’m not looking forward to leaving all my friends here, but I am also really excited to see everyone back home! Until next time, hope everyone stays safe, happy, and healthy!