Building opportunity

Seeing as though this is my first blog post in eight months... I ought to explain myself!

 

Teaching computer class (among many other things) here at the Lycée Provincial de Koudougou has truly been the opportunity of a lifetime. The amount that I've learned in the past year and a half, from teaching to computer repair to managing a network to working to start a nonprofit business to becoming professionally competent in a foreign language... has left me struggling to keep pace with myself. It hasn't always been easy, with many late nights, some rough early mornings and a fair number of expected and unexpected frustrations... but I can’t think of anything I’d rather be doing right now (though if they had $6 Pizza Hut lunch buffets here, I wouldn’t complain…)

Having a decadent lunch a few blocks away from school.

Everyone deserves a challenging opportunity like this. And since I will be the last Peace Corps volunteer at my particular high school, capping off our 6-year mission here, ensuring that happens is kind of my job right now. I’m currently working with a small group of teachers and top students, giving them some training on everything that goes on here so they can take the project towards new heights in the coming years. I’ll do my best to explain what we’re up to now, though my English is admittedly a little rusty!

c. November 2012

To pick up where I left of last time, I spent a lot of time over the summer of 2013 figuring out ways to improve from the previous year. In November 2012, I had only two weeks to get the computers fully installed, finish lesson planning, and configure an improvised server setup before starting class. So I was happy to have the luxury of time for a change to really figure things out.

The newest IT teachers at Lycée Provincial de Koudougou!

One of the more intellectually challenging tasks was setting up a server that allows password protected accounts. This was a big complaint of students last year—anyone could go into anyone else’s personal folder and delete their work. Of course, this was more of an excuse than anything. Students that didn’t save correctly (and thus couldn’t get credit) sometimes tried to shift the blame. But thanks to a server sent to us by Friends of Burkina Faso last spring, and a decent number of hours spent figuring out how to use Red Hat Linux, getting comfortable with the command line and .conf files, everyone, including teachers, has their own private folder.

Fedora 8 and Windows 7 working happily together.

Something else that also works much better this year: the projector! Last year, the one we had was on its last legs—it would overheat and shut off after little more than 5 minutes. It helped keep the lectures short… but was overall less than ideal. Another shout-out to Friends of Burkina Faso for financing a new one, which lasts for the entire two hours if need be.

Last year, I also posted some photos of groups of students congregated around computers, leaving open the other perfectly functional machines around them. This was a drastic measure I had taken in class to accommodate for the terribly slow internet speed. We only had a 128kbps connection—hardly faster than dial-up, and shared between the 40+ computers in both of our classrooms. So, finding a way to improve this situation was a priority if we ever wanted to effectively work with the internet in class.

One of the difficult realities is that Burkina Faso is so far afield from the main infrastructure of the internet that it has to compete with every other country in West Africa for space on the undersea cables that go to Europe and the USA. As a result, the monthly price for a connection that would be slightly below average back in the States is extremely expensive-- $160 for 1 Mbps—close to the monthly salary of a full-time teacher here. We had looked into upgrading to this sort of subscription but ran into some bureaucratic difficulties that forced us to consider other options.

Africa's connections to the rest of the world.

Paling in comparison to every other continent, though new connections are opening up to South America.

The most promising alternative has been the new 3.75G cell network that has recently come to Koudougou. The connection speed is even faster than the 1 Mbps “high-speed” line that we were considering—the first time I tried it, I was stunned by how pages loaded immediately. Looking at the big picture, it makes a lot of sense why this might be our best option. Computers are still unaffordable to the average person here, but nearly everyone has a cell phone, and for a little extra investment (as little as $20 if used), one can get a smartphone that is internet-capable. So it’s just a matter of adapting the better-developed smartphone infrastructure to our needs (and perhaps adjusting the curriculum a bit to adapt to the fact more of the business that’s done on computers in the US is doable on phones here).

As anyone who has a 3G/4G data plan can attest, mobile internet, at least by volume, is more expensive than the DSL line at the house! This is definitely a challenge, but it’s also something where the circumstances may work in our favor. Most of our classes cover basic computer use and MS Office with a few (less than a third) of sessions directly related to the internet. We don’t need to download huge files or stream video; we just need the net to run quickly during the research project we give the students as part of the basic course so they aren’t left waiting half an hour for a page of text to load. Since we only need this at very specific times, and not all the time the entire year, it makes sense to only pay for what we use.

The plan: connect the USB modem to a computer and share that computer's connection via the WAN port of a router.

As I mentioned earlier, we have also been working to update the curriculum. Given the rapid rise in mobile adoption, the growing usefulness of the internet in Burkina-specific contexts, the new server, and the switch to Windows 7, it has been really necessary to make sure that our teaching remains relevant! The new projector has helped a lot to this end—I have been able to produce better quality Power Point presentations complete with animations designed to better explain concepts that some students found difficult last year. We are able to focus a lot more vocabulary (so that when the teacher says to open “Windows Explorer” the students know exactly what to do)—and can more easily make those associations with the help of a projection. The teachers in training can use the slides as a base for their classes and easily suggest changes as necessary.

Mr. Kabré on Day 2 of class.

One of the most notable changes from last year, however, has been the drop in the student:teacher ratio. We are now beating most liberal-arts colleges back in the States now with 4 teachers for every 26 students maximum. I am present in all 4 sections of class that we currently offer, but I take a backseat in all but 1 of them—the teacher in training leads the class. They are helped by 2 experienced students (who did well in the class last year), and all 4 of us circulate around the room during the practical activities to make sure everyone understood the lesson. This has been especially helpful for the first few classes, where many of the students aren’t yet comfortable with the keyboard and mouse and just need a little more encouragement and guidance to keep trying. It’s a lot of fun, too! I never want to teach class alone again.

Leading class with Mr. Ouattara

But as anyone who know how much liberal arts colleges cost will know, the student:teacher ratio doesn’t come free. In past years, when only the volunteer was involved in teaching (and thus paid by Peace Corps), we didn’t need to charge for the class, and those of you who can remember from my post last year, in 2012, I chose the students based solely on an application essay. But since we have new Burkinabé teachers who will replace me next year (Peace Corps can’t pay them! Nor can the school… yet), we had to figure out a system that would sustainably work for everyone. But despite my analogy to liberal arts colleges, the class fee really is minimal-- 5000 Francs ($10). This also ought to cover some of the maintenance expenses of the lab that will come up as the computers age. We promise them at least 40 hours of class time—so 25 cents an hour, half the price of a cybercafé’s hourly rate and less than half of the price of an equivalent class offered by the cybercafé. If our work impresses the school administration and parents' association enough, we might be able to lower the price even more.

Hermann Nebie explains how to use the mouse to some of the beginning students.

 And I think that together, we will be able to do this. Every time we finish a class, we all feel a rush of positive energy, despite it being 8 PM and the end of a long day (most of our classes are evening classes). Students pass by every day asking if it isn’t too late to sign up. Everyone even showed up on the day of a general strike, because I forgot to say that class was cancelled! It’s a motivating atmosphere.

Mr. Kandé, the sysadmin-in-training.

If I’ve learned anything in my time here, it’s that the job doesn’t stop at the end of class time, or even grading/lesson planning time. Running a computer lab requires running and configuring a server, maintaining and fixing computers and figuring out how to make all of this a financially sustainable proposition. As tiring as it all is (apparently schools in the US often have several people who manage these challenges without even worrying about classes…), it is an unparalleled way of learning new, marketable tech savvy. The thought of adding some real, concrete skills to my résumé has helped me through some late nights here. Similar thoughts motivate the teachers I work with, so it’s with great enthusiasm that they are also learning how to work the server, cut new Ethernet cables and troubleshoot malfunctioning computers, whether they are ours or one of our less technically inclined colleagues (who often bring in their computers for us to fix).

Measuring out 100m of ethernet cable outside an electronics market in Ouagadougou.

Cutting up the cable with Mr. Kombassere and Mr. Tuena of Lycée Municipal de Koudougou (our crosstown rivals!)

The majority of teachers at our school now own computers, and Ziba (co-manager of the computer lab) and I are the go-to tech guys in case of any problems. I enjoyed helping people out for the first few months of my time here as I was waiting for class to start, but as soon as I got busy, it became an additional chore in an already stressful environment. Ziba wanted to charge them, but was afraid of how that would be seen. We decided to charge for our services but use all of the money earned from that to make small improvements to the lab, and cover the various little expenses that the administration couldn’t regularly pay for, like towels for cleaning the computers, maintenance of the air conditioners and certificates for students who successfully completed the class.

At the awards ceremony last year.

Most people needed fairly simple things like an antivirus, but occasionally we would get a special request or a particularly stubborn computer that would require us to get something from Ouagadougou (Burkina’s capital city, an hour and a half bus ride from here). People wanted to buy computers, but didn’t know who they could trust (there are many merchants who sell cheap but unreliable computers without warranties here, to catch unsuspecting people who look only at the price). To satisfy these demands we partnered with Steve Amodio, a Burkina RPCV (Returned Peace Corps Volunteer) living in Ouagadougou who runs a business importing used computers from the US. Our sales commissions will help us buy more tools allowing us to do even more technical repairs which the advanced students are able to follow as part of their class.

Wilson Traoré, Patrice Yameogo, and Boris Bazie test and switch out malfunctioning disc drives.

These “advanced students” are the same ones I mentioned earlier who help out with teaching the class to the beginners. While we can’t pay them for their help, they do receive a free class on computer maintenance every Saturday mornings with opportunities to put their knowledge into practice during their free hours throughout the week. They help us clean the lab every Saturday before class (no janitors here!), and get two hours of free time to play with our computers afterwards. They also sign up for special projects involving everything from marketing to general operations (one is in charge of noting the schedule for Ziba and I and tacking it outside our door). Last Saturday, we managed all this through Google Drive (though a last-minute tech issue limited us to one computer – our 3G provider needs to give us a fixed IP address), and I spent Monday tracing out the logistics of grouping the students to accomplish the various tasks.

Switching around the keys to turn an American computer into a French one.

One of the students really impressed me that day as well. One proposed project has been creating ID cards to better identify students who are and aren't allowed to use the lab. As there are nearly 3000 students at the school (from 6eme to Terminale - 6th grade to senior year) and only 27 computers open to students, we are still at a ratio of over 100 to 1! We allow only sophomores and up to take the class, and only those who are currently enrolled or have taken (and passed) the class in the past to come during their free periods, less than 200 in total. We want to bump up that last number, having a more organized system will help. The above-mentioned student created a great prototype design in about an hour. He will work on it some more with his group tomorrow and we will pitch the final design to the administration on Friday.

Jean Yameogo works with Windows XP on the left and Windows 8 on the right.

Heading into tomorrow, the schedule looks tighter than ever. We have three different computers to turn around for repairs, a server to reconfigure (not recognizing the backup router) and a number of lessons to prepare, but fortunately students have a lot of free periods on Thursdays and I think we will get a lot done. Mistakes will be made, we may fall a little short of our expectations, but we'll probably learn a few interesting things too. Here's to another full day in Koudougou!

Before I conclude this (somewhat lengthy) update, I just want to thank you all for your many letters and positive thoughts. I hope this post helps explain where I'm at, even if I (probably) haven't managed to write back. I am expecting at least a few more intense months here, so I don't know when I can promise my next update, but will try to keep it interesting.