There's a school around here somewhere!

They took turns every time someone made a mistake. That'll learn ya!

Lights on...

...lights off. The computers still run though!

Unfortunately, due to a shortage of funds, this school could only receive one computer and no battery charger. Currently, I don’t have any funds for more computers or money for a battery charger, plus I’m leaving tomorrow. With that said, Bishwa will act as a liaison with this school; if we raise more funds they can still get new equipment delivered, installed and maintained. If you would be willing to help sponsor this school, the battery charger they need is $50 USD. These computers have made a huge impact on the school just in the hour and a half Bishwa and I were there; it’d be great to see the kind of impact a working battery backup system would bring to the Ideal Peace English School. Speaking of which, I’d like to stress again that the project will not stop once I leave, and there is still a lot of work to do here. Much of the work I did here in Nepal was setting up the infrastructure to keep computers coming to Nepal after I leave. Many new computers will be funded by the schools themselves and other NGOs and individuals in Nepal, but contributions to my gap year fund will still make a meaningful difference, and I know the schools I’ve visited in the past three months would very much appreciate additional help.

That’s enough for now — gotta pack!

Thanks,
Charles

Some others also hiked the mountain to practice yoga. Also pictured: me being too tired to focus the lens.

Afterwards, Jagan and I returned to the Morning Star Academy. We brought with us two computers and two monitors. We let them know that these two computers were just preliminary tester units — because the Morning Star Academy is a private school, they have some funds (albeit limited) of their own to spend on computers. If they want more, they can pay for them (and Kiran, Jagan and I will match them one-to-one).

After visiting Morning Star, we met up Kiran at the Gyan Bhumi public school. This year is the 50th anniversary of the school, so it is a great time for new computers — they are really turning over a new leaf in a number of ways. Thanks to Rotary International, they are building a second floor to take three new classes (eight, nine and ten), the three years of High School in Nepal. These computers will help them teach the new classes coming in next year, which the government mandates have access to computer-based education.

It's alive!

After Gyan Bhumi, Jagan invited me to lunch. We went to his house and had a great talk about the future of this project in Pokhara, other schools to visit, etc. We had one more computer left for distribution in Pokhara, and Jagan suggested the school run by Catholic missionaries, which his daughters (and niece) attended. After lunch, Jagan, Kiran and I set out to visit the school, leaving them the final computer. Their computer lab, which has nearly a hundred computers (the school is very big), is quite outdated and draws a huge amount of electricity. The donation is for their consideration, they will decide whether or not to switch to these computers the next time they draw up their budgets.

Speaking of which, Jagan has two computers in his showroom. He will take pre-orders and let me know the kind of demand he is getting for these computers: they are priced lower than the MSI Wind / ASUS EeePC nettops he is currently selling, plus they use the 945GSEJT chipset rather than the 945GC chipset: cheaper, better performance, more hard drive space, and a third of the power consumption. The village he grew up in is also looking for computers (funded by Rotary, which he is a member of), and these computers seem to be a perfect fit. By selling these computers in his shop, I will get a cut of the profit (which will in turn fund more computers), the technology will get more widespread usage in Nepal, and we will be able to afford larger order quantities (lowering the per-unit cost). Our long-term goal is to distribute computers to each of the nine schools under the watch of the Village Development Committee he is on: ambitious, but hopefully we will reach it one day, giving computers to those who would otherwise not have access. If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the past week outside of Kathmandu, it is that the technology and the personnel willing to make these dreams a reality exist, the problem is really just funding. Meeting entrepeneurs like Jagan, Kiran, Muni and Mahabir realy give me hope about the future of this project. From seeing the new computer labs in Kaphal Danda and Benche, to the computers running along side the laptops donated by Mr. Friederick’s interim trip in Gyan Bhumi, it really gives me hope that a year, two years, five years down the line, students across Nepal will have the same access to information technology that we are afforded in a school like Hong Kong International. If a school outside of Nangi can have access to the internet before they have access to cars, I believe there is so much potential to be tapped in other areas around Nepal.

Tomorrow morning I’ll hop on the bus to Kathmandu. Two nights there and I leave for Hong Kong. While there is still work to do in Kathmandu, I’d like to take the opportunity to thank everyone who donated to this project. The past two and a half months have been incredible, and I fully understand that it wouldn’t be possible without the help of the people who donated or otherwise helped with the project. I hope to keep things going as best as I can once I leave Nepal (in Nepal and in other locales throughout the world), and the future looks bright — but the reason this pilot program was possible in the first place is due to the generosity of the people who helped out.

That’s all for now.
Charles

The first full day I was in Nangi, two more Australians arrived. Ben and Lauren started trekking in Spain, where they got married, and have found there way over land to Nepal ever since. They are en-route to the southernmost point of Asia they can find — perhaps somewhere in Indonesia — where they will take a boat back to Australia. Sounds like a great trip! After they arrived, I setup Mahabir’s computer room with an additional five computers. The computer room has a number of computers already, some being old and some being new. One misunderstanding I had was that the computers downstairs running Ubuntu aren’t used in the classroom, they are used for internet access only. The computers in the classroom require Windows for the curriculum, so I had to uninstall Ubuntu and replace it with a Windows installation. Oh well! I installed Windows 7, Office and Firefox, which is all Krishna said they needed for now, but more software can be installed later. I installed these programs from .ISO files extracted to a USB key, since the computers don’t have CD/DVD drives, and I showed him how to make an ISO file from a CD and extract it to a USB key. I called my computers the ‘babu computers’ (baby computers), because they are so much smaller than the towers they have.

Because the Himanchal High School’s computer lab has four 300aH batteries connected to a 48V DC to 220V AC inverter, we used the AC-DC converters and plugged them into the wall sockets (that are wired through the batteries and the inverters). The 10-15% loss in efficiency instead of running straight off the battery is made up for by the extra capacity of the four batteries, plus the ease of use of just having to unplug the computers from an extension cord if they need to be moved or replaced.

A variant of hockey that kids play in Nepal, using bamboo sticks and a discarded plastic bottle.

As I was to set off to Benche the next day, Ben, Lauren and Lee decided to come with me to the school. Thankfully, a jeep drove by the Himanchal school just as we were leaving, saving us having to carry the 35kg tubular lead-acid battery on our backs through the two and a half hour hike. We brought with us three computers, three monitors and a 15 amp battery charger, in addition to the 300aH behemoth. Wiring was a breeze: I cut off the output end of the AC-DC adapters, so that I’d have a positive and negative terminal with a DC power connector that fit the motherboard’s DC input jack. One of the brands of adapters had an obvious “positive” wire: the inside of the connector was positive, and the cable was shielded on the inside of the cable, with the rest of the wire wrapped around the outside. The other brand, however, was less obvious. Rather than red and black (positive and negative), it had brown and blue wires. Brown and blue? I took a shot in the dark, vaguely remembering a lighting project (for photography) I once did with brown/blue wires, where brown was positive. Thankfully I was correct and nothing blew up!

The old computers broke down, these CRT monitors were all that were left in the unused computer lab.

Krishna, Ben, Lauren, Lee and I took a while to show the teachers of the school the ins and outs of the computers, and then we had a long meeting talking about the usages of the computers, what to do when things break down, what to do if they need help, etc.

The 300aH battery can also be used to power 12V LED lighting, fixing their lighting problem.

Next, I was given a tour of the school and the rest of the Benche village.

Teachers grade the exams students took last week.

This is the wireless receiver the Himanchal High School uses to connect to the transmitter located on a mountaintop a few kilometers away.

The next day, Chandra invited me to a wedding in the Nangi village (Ben, Lauren and Lee had already left Nangi). The groom is a serving soldier in the British army (also called a Gurka / Gorkah), like his father and grandfather before him. The wedding slaughtered a buffalo, so we had a lot of meat to eat in addition to the rice. I still have trouble eating rice with my hands, so I was the laughing stock of the wedding reception. Thanks, guys!

The next day, I left for Kaphal Danda with Krishna at 7:00AM. This time, we hiked down through the valley and up the other side. It saved us having to follow the newly-constructed road which stays at a constant level around the valley. We arrived at Benche at around 9:00AM, finally arriving at Kaphal Danda at around 10:00AM. Thankfully, we were only carrying two computers and two monitors this time (the battery had been taken to Kaphal Danda the day before by a group of four students walking home after school).

This computer was donated fifteen days ago. It has yet to be used, due to electrical concerns.

I cut the wires using this sickel.

This is the first time the school has had a working computer, so the teachers needed to be trained. Some of the teachers have used computers before, but none of the students have.

The flowers were given to me by the teachers at the Kaphal Danda school.

After setting up the computers in Kaphal Danda, someone from Benche came to walk me back for an official ceremony. Because I had set the computers up on a day where the students weren’t in, they wouldn’t know who had set them up — the school officials wanted the students to meet me. Walking back to Benche, I could hear the loadspeaker / PA system they setup echoing throughout the valley.

The top-scoring students took turns giving me a lanyard of flowers and honorary red powder. The white sash on my back is a traditional Nepali dress, used to store things while walking.

I even got to meet the village elders. Quite the honor!

After the ceremony, the rest of the students gathered around to learn their exam grades.

We met with the teachers at the Benche school one more time. In-N-Out?!

Later that night, I finally got my first cloudless night in Nangi. There was also no moon out. The stars were incredible!

Click for the full 1500 x 1000 image.

The next morning I woke up at 6:00AM to leave Nangi. As the sun rose, I realized that there was frost on the ground! I got in the jeep and set off for Beni, where I hopped on the top of a bus headed for Pokhara.

Around this time, my MP3 player ran out of batteries. I looked down to wrap up the headphones and pack it up, and as I was putting it in my bag I saw a large brown object veering towards my face. Looking up, I saw a thick stone gate at eye level a few feet away, and I quickly bent over backwards. I stayed down until I saw it go over my head by a few inches, and when I looked up I saw a busload of wide-eyed Nepalis, unaware if I had been hit or if I was alright. I said “ram ro chha!” and they burst out with cheers and wild applause. Close one.

As we got closer to Pokhara, a few more tourists hopped on.

At the moment I am sitting in Jagan’s office installing Windows 7 on seven computers. They were meant to go out to schools today, but because of some setbacks with the installation process (how come the last time I made bootable USB drives, everything went fine, but this time it just doesn’t want to work?), it looks like that will have to wait until tomorrow.

That’s all for now.
Charles

We loaded this all in the taxi and set off to Beni, a town where we were to be picked up in a jeep. We picked up a football in Beni and loaded our bags into the jeep that was there to pick us up. Contrary to our understanding of the situation, we weren’t to be alone in this jeep (although that too would have been a tight fit), and we watched person after person jam in with us. Eventually we had to shift all our bags and boxes up on top, as there were about twice as many people as there were seats!

About seven and a half hours after leaving Pokhara, we arrived in Nangi. The original plan was to hike here, so I had to dump some weight and leave things in Kathmandu. The 500mm lens was one of the casualties of this decision, and I instantly regretted it once I saw how amazing Nangi was: the Himanchal High School is surrounded by towering peaks and cavernous valleys begging to be photographed.

I dropped off the supplies in my room (one of the class 11 students called me ’superman’ because I carried one of the 300aH batteries by myself. Thanks, Kumar). I explored the campus a little bit, when I found Krishna’s child. No older than four or five, I said “namaste babu!”. He sheepishly said, “Namaste”. I asked him what his name was, and he replied “Kisoj”. He had trouble pronouncing my name, so I asked around for a good Nepali name. “Gorei”, meaning “white skin”. I rolled with this name for a while, but then realized I should have a more formal name for meeting with elder people and the teachers. I asked if “cha li” would be suitable, and it seemed to catch on…but I just found out that is a girl’s name. GREAT!

I noticed that the class 11 and class 12 boys were playing football, so I joined in with the ball I bought in Beni (the old ball they were using was flat). My name for the game was still “Gorei dai” or “Gorei bai” (dai is used when someone is older than you, bai is used when someone is younger than you), and they were impressed by my ability to simultaneously score goals and shriek like a “keti babu” (baby girl). The phrase “ai ya”, “cai na” and “team zero” also caught on as the number of goals scored seemed to rise about every five times the other team scored. It wasn’t a pretty sight from an athletic standpoint, but it was a lot of fun! As the sun set, we finished the game (final score something like one lac to three).

I also managed to take a look at Himanchal’s computer room, and I was glad to see that they were using Ubuntu. I think the computers were setup using PXE / a thin client system: the data wasn’t stored on the computer in a hard drive, rather a central server which would send the data to the computers when they booted. I also noticed that many of the kids seem to be using the computers well, to the point where they can converse with friends and family over Meebo and Hi5 (nobody had Facebook, I asked). I think the best way to learn typing is to have a conversation over an instant messenger, and most of the students were typing quickly. There is very little impetus to learn typing if you are just staring at some tutor telling you to type “fj jf f f j jfj” for ten minutes; talking to a friend shows you the value of having typing skills.

The internet is also quite fast: I ran a speed test and the speed was 95KB/s! This is nearly 1mb/s, I’m very impressed by the work Mahabir has done. To get these kinds of speeds in a village as remote as Nangi is such an amazing feat, and I’m incredibly impressed that the students were making good usage of the internet provided. I asked one student who he was talking to, and he showed me that he was talking to two people (using the online service Meebo): his mother in Kathmandu, and another student across the valley. Speaking of which, I brought ten computers to Nangi. Five will stay with Mahabir here, three will go to the school of the student across the valley, and two will go to another school nearby (also across the valley).

Things are looking great: the students are familiar with Ubuntu (after you have Firefox running, what differences are there anyway?), and the internet speed is fast enough to make good usage of the computers. Mahabir’s Himanchal school looks great so far, and I can’t wait to get these computers I brought up and running tomorrow. I’ll keep you posted, and I’ll try to take some pictures along the way.

UPDATE: Here are some pictures. It’s getting really cloudy and it’s super cold, plus I’m extremely tired from yesterday. I’ll take some better pics tomorrow, I promise (realizing that Polaris is behind the lodge I’m staying in gave me an idea for a picture…)

The lights are from the student volunteers who go out to make sure everyone is in their room.

That’s all for now.
Charles

Two days ago I met with OLE. The meeting went very well, but that’s content for another update another day! I also finished cloning hard drives, building computers, and packing everything up.

Yesterday, Ram came in even though it was a Saturday and helped me pack everything up. We tested each computer individually, then put half of them into boxes to take with me to Pokhara. I had hired a five seater car, but Muni thought it was too small and asked for something bigger. After this, Muni I stopped by the orphanage to donate two of the computers. I taught two kids how to turn it on, use it, open various programs, etc. Those two are going to teach the rest how to use the touch typing tutor, and I’ll check back with them when I arrive back in Kathmandu on the 15th. When we arrived back at Muni’s place from the orphanage, we saw the new van. It was huge! It could have fit 10 people. Same cost as the car, though, so we loaded the boxes of computers into the back and I set out on my way.

I’m here in Pokhara with 17 computers. Later today I will be meeting with Mr. Pun’s colleague who will give me a ride to the village. After that, we’ll take a hike to the school.

That’s all the time I have for now. I am not sure if I will have internet access while working at Mahabir’s schools, but I’ll try to give a better update some time soon.

UPDATE: Well, today there was a strike, and I am still in Pokhara. I took the time to meet Mr. Gurung as well as Kiran earlier, two of Mr. Friedericks’ friends. We had previously met the last time I was in Pokhara. Today I gave them seven computers. Two are for Jagan to use as he sees fit — to test, benchmarket, gauge marketability, etc — and five are for safe keeping until I get back to Pokhara next week. These five computers will be distributed between the Morning Star Academy and another local school, both of which I have already visited the last time I was here.

Unfortunately, the strike today not only applied to vehicles, but also stores. I was meant to pick up two batteries and two battery chargers, but that will have to wait until tomorrow morning. 6:00AM start, so I should get to bed! I’ll try to update the blog while in Nangi / Beni. We’ll see how things go!

That’s all for now.
Charles

Tomorrow I will meet with OLE Nepal to see about getting some more educational material to preload on these computers. They are Room To Read’s Nepali partner, and I am very interested in what they have done so far: they are also the OLPC representative in Nepal, with I believe 26 schools using the OLPC computers. If we distribute just one computer to each of these schools, with the preloaded educational content, the preexisting OLPCs will have access to a host of educational material that was previously unavailable: the XO laptops have small ~8GB flash storage, so by adding one of these computers with a 250GB hard drive, the amount of information the students using the laptops can access will increase dramatically. I will also try to visit the orphanage and the school in Patan, but who knows what my time constraints will be — it all depends on whether or not these hard drives can be cloned and installed in time. I will be bringing twenty computers to Pokhara, so that is the minimum number of HDDs I need to setup. So much work! Things have been really, really busy today: I woke up at 8:30AM and I’m still working even though it is past 1:00AM. I’m glad I found a nearby shop that sells two liter bottles of Mountain Dew, I wouldn’t be functioning otherwise.

I have rented a car to take me to Pokhara, rather than a bus. It is an extra $35 USD on top of the cost of a bus ticket, but I wouldn’t feel safe with twenty computers sitting in the cargo hold below the passenger component. It would be frustrating to come all this way just to have a hole poked through a hard drive on the way to the village or a mix up with the bags: I will coddle the computers and keep them on my lap the whole way!

On the down side, Shyami found out I was leaving today, and he didn’t take it well at all. I guess in the middle of the drama of delayed components and 16-hour workdays nobody told him that I’d be leaving Kathmandu in two days time, and I feel terrible about it. Earlier today I tried to cheer him up by playing carrom board, a game similar to billiards but played with the fingers and Necco-wafer shaped pucks, but he just kept saying “you Saturday no go” through tearful sobs. The worst part is that I’m not even sure if I should tell him that I’m coming back — I may not have time to come back to Kalikasthan before I leave on the 17th. Really, really heartbreaking. I think what makes it especially tough is that we really don’t have a way to keep in touch: he doesn’t have an email address or a phone number, and even if he did there’s still the problem of the language barrier.

I’ll try and have another update before I leave Kathmandu.

That’s all for now.
Charles

Two weeks remain on this project: today is the 2nd of December, I leave Nepal on the 17th. Since the last update, I’ve taken the time to individually test each motherboard. Out of the box, one didn’t work (jumper cable was incorrectly set) and another seemed to be broken. By chance, it was the second motherboard I was testing, so I had fears that 50% of the boards would be defective. Luckily, it turned out I had just forgot to insert the RAM. Uhh…moving on.

Shyami was intrigued by the boxes. He pointed at asked, "computer?". Smart kid.

The day after testing the motherboards and putting them in antistatic bags, the cases arrived at Tribhuvan International Airport. Great! The components were coming in to Nepal bit by bit, and I would have plenty of time to assemble the computers and get them in to schools. Two days later the monitors arrived, and once again I checked each one bit-by-bit, ensuring they all worked. One monitor inexplicably had no video output: the screen was pure white whenever I turned it on. This was fixed by unplugging the power adapter for ten seconds and reinserting it. Odd…

That was four days ago. After that, unfortunately, things ground to a halt. The RAM hadn’t shipped yet and the HDDs had left Shanghai a week before without any news from the EMS tracking website. Was the plane delayed? Were they sitting in a cargo hold in Beirut? Had they disappeared off the face of the Earth? Thankfully, this morning I check the EMS website again and the Hard Drives had arrived at the Kathmandu General Post Office. Not sure what this means, really — why aren’t they in customs at the airport? Will we be able to pick them up? Will we get charged an exorbitant fee for importing them?

I am currently scheduled to leave Kathmandu and go to Pokhara to distribute five computers each to three rural schools. Waiting for RAM is not an option. I will be diverting the RAM to Hong Kong for the next leg of this project in Ghana, and we will buy RAM locally. Because the RAM is far more expensive locally, this means cutting back from 2GB each to 1GB per computer — and paying an extra $5 USD on top for each unit. Not cheap. The upside of this is that I will still be able to bring fifteen computers to Pokhara on Saturday. This change of plans seems to be the only way that I can stick to the plan — although it means the computers will have less performance at a higher cost.

Today I gave a demonstration to Mr. Mahabir Pun, who was not only keen on using the computers in his schools, but in his servers as a part of his Telemedicine project. Two of the three schools in Pokhara that I will be visiting are part of the Himanchal foundation. Mr. Pun’s work is amazing — in order to provide internet access to rural clinics, he uses high gain antennas and WiFi technology to beam access miles away. And by “miles”, I don’t mean one or two, as in the Mile of Wifi we setup: his longest wireless connection is from Nagarkot to a base station forty seven kilometers away which then connects to a rural health clinic (another few dozen miles away).

His schools are a perfect candidates for this project, for a number of reasons: firstly, they are quite remote — from Kathmandu, I will be taking a seven hour bus ride to Pokhara. From there, I will be taking a four hour bus ride, followed by an eight hour hike. Because of their remote nature, on most days electricity access is shaky at best; often times not being accessible at all. Even with the remoteness of this school, they will have internet access provided by Mr. Pun’s wireless intranet project: the link speed to Pokhara will be in the range of 30mb/s, which is then connected to a central location in Kathmandu via a 2mb/s fiber line that Mr. Pun had installed himself. While the students won’t be using much of this 2mb/s line, they will certainly have the capacity for email and using the internet as an educational resource. I think it is amazing that despite the isolation this school faces, they will have a top-notch computer lab with internet connectivity. With solar energy and wireless internet access, internet-connected computer labs can be built in the most remote of areas, without the need to erect any unsightly towers to carry power cables or telephone lines. I think this is a great step forward for the development of rural areas, whether it is in Nepal or Ghana or anywhere else in the world: the access to information technology is no longer shackled by proximity to a large city or town.

Another update is that I will be selling prints and books. This will be done online, although pick ups on photos up to 8×10″ are available at Walmart, Duane Reade, Meijer, and a host of other stores throughout the US. Shipping is also possible (both the US and international shipping) on prints up to 20×30″. In addition I will be bringing prints to Hong Kong this Christmas. The available photographs are in this Flickr set, although it is entirely possible that I have missed some. If there are any photos from my time in Nepal that you would like to have a print of, please let me know! All proceeds from these prints will go towards funding computers for my trip to Ghana next month. Please email me with your address and the requested photographs (and sizes) and I can send you the prints via UPS. Here are the prices, in USD:

4×6″ : $1.25
5×7″ : $2.50
8×10″ : $5.00
11×14″ : $10.00
12×18″ : $20.00
16×20″ : $35.00
20×30″ : $50.00

Well, I think that just about covers it. I will try and take a number of photographs of my time distributing the computers over the next two weeks to make up for these boring text-centric updates!

That’s all for now.
Charles

Also, I will be selling prints and photobooks (published through Blurb) of the photographs I have taken in Nepal to date. All proceeds will go towards funding more computers. I can either deliver prints in person in Hong Kong (I’ll be in HK from the 18th of December to mid-January), or you can get them online through a web service like Snapfish. I can print up to 40 x 30″, but any size below that is possible. Almost any of the photos you have seen on the blog can be printed, so if you have a favorite, let me know.

That’s all for now.
Charles

The news is that the 945GSEJT motherboards have arrived at Tribhuvan International Airport here in Nepal, which is great: we’ll probably pick them up tomorrow. The cases and HDDs are in Hong Kong ready to be shipped to Nepal via air freight, the RAM will be sent from Shenzhen tomorrow, and the monitors I had custom built to specification are also ready; those will ship Wednesday once the company tests a few features.

Also note that I have rebooked my flight to Hong Kong to the 18th of December (it was previously the 6th of December), and canceled my (refundable) ticket to the US. Christmas in Hong Kong this year! This will give me a few days with each school to setup and make sure they know how to use the computers, which is essential to the long term success of this project. The goal is to put five computers in six schools, including battery backup systems and optional solar panels, depending off the school. Unless it is completely off-grid, they will not need the solar panels — however, I have been talking to the founder of the “Himanchal School”, which seems to be a perfect candidate for an off-grid computer system complete with solar panels.

I’ll post a longer update when I get my charger, be assured there is more to come! This project is starting to wrap up, which is a really relieving feeling. I am looking forward to showing the fruits of my (our) labor over the past few month in a week or so.

That’s all for now.
Charles