Tuesday, March 2, 2010

March 2

Today we're going to Melotto School in Chimaltenango, hopefully for the last time. Once again we had to get up at 5:00 a.m. to take the 7:00 a.m. Pullman that's going to Panajachel. They drop us off right at the street to the school and pick us up on the Pan American Highway on their return trip from Pana to La Antigua around 1:15 p.m.

As we walked out the front door of our apartment, we were delighted to see that Fuego and Acatenango were in full view. In addition, the moon was suspended in the sky over them.

Agua was also fully visible.

After watching two overfilled chicken buses pass by our road, we once again walked the short distance into Ciudad Vieja, where we soon boarded a bus to La Antigua.

By 6:45 a.m., we had made it to the parking lot where the Pana bus loads. It finally arrived about 6:55 p.m. By a little after 7:00 a.m., we were on our way. It was somewhat strange, as no backpackers had boarded the bus for the trip.

We had just reached Pastores when we found the highway blocked. We took the bypass, including a short tunnel under the new highway to Chimaltenange that we'll take on our return trip. We soon returned to our original route, since there were passengers on board for a number of regular stops. We had another delay, due to road reconstruction, but arrived at our regular stop at a gas station in Chimal. This is where the driver and ayudante pick up their mid-morning snack. We were back on the road just after 8:00 a.m. and shortly afterwards had been dropped off at the street to the school.

We arrived at the school, greeted the librarian, let the office and director know we were on the grounds and then walked to the computer room. To our delight, it was filled with a room-full of young students learning about the parts of a computer and using Microsoft Paint to create neat pictures.

After the class returned to their regular classroom, the computer teacher showed us four "new" computers they had received and asked if we could put the Spanish keyboard typing tutor program on them. We said that we would as well as conduct some additional scans for malware.

We ran the additional scans and on all but one computer found at least 3 and, in one case, 11 malware issues. After they were cleaned, we loaded the typing tutor program. There are now seven computers in the lab that have both a Spanish keyboard typing tutor program, some version of Microsoft Office and Microsoft Paint. Two computers, one that just appeared and the one that was rebuilt on our last visit, are useless. The rebuilt one, for some strange reason, refuses to recognize the CD drive, the floppy drive and the USB ports. One other computer that just arrived is locked down with a program called "Deep Freeze," which prevents changes in the setup, including installation of new programs. I considered doing a fresh install, but discovered that the tower did not have a CD drive. Neither of these last two computers will be of much use in the lab.

Shortly before 1:00 p.m., we walked down the street to the Pan American Highway to wait for our bus to return from Pana. It finally arrived at 1:15 p.m. and, in thirty minutes, we were back in La Antigua.

Once back, we walked through the outdoor portion of the mercado so that we could pick up some avocados, bananas and cooking oil. We then went to Pollo Campero for a soft-serve ice cream cone.

We returned to the terminal to find a chicken bus heading for Alotenango. Boarding the bus there gave us a much better chance of getting a seat near the front, which made getting off at our road much easier. We soon found our bus and were the first to load, which gave us our pick of seats. While waiting, I took this picture showing how the driver has customized his command center.

We departed about 2:30 p.m. and before 3:00 p.m. were back in our apartment.

This evening we had dinner with Sam, John and Kristen. Kristen, you know, is the Program Coordinator we've been working with, John is the In-Country Director and Sam is the Executive Director for Child Aid and is from Oregon. After cleaning up and changing clothes, we had a video chat with Susan, Max and Erik. Around 5:30 p.m. we headed back to the highway to find another chicken bus heading to La Antigua.

We managed to get the second one we saw to stop and pick us up. By 6:10 p.m., we were back in La Antigua. Dinner was supposed to be at the Rainbow Cafe, but there was a lecture going on. Soon John arrived, followed by Kristen and Sam and we learned that we would be eating at La Peña de Sol Latino (Latin Sun Club), where we had enjoyed the children doing the Mayan ceremonial and folk dances several weeks ago.

Dinner was fine and the conversation interesting, but it appears that Child Aid has no interest in branching out into the area of computer literacy. They are interested in my assistance in researching new funding opportunities using a subscription they've just obtained to an on-line foundation directory. I agreed to assist them with the understanding that I could use the database to also research health-related funding for Primeros Pasos in Xela.

After dinner, John offered to drop us off at the apartment to save us the expense of a taxi. We were back home by 8:00 p.m. in time to blog and watch a movie. Tomorrow we'll go back to Socorro School and should be able to finish that project.