Moving on Up
Before I leave for the Congo, Dan, TICH's director, asks if I’d be interested in managing the IT team. “Well,” I say, “could we call it more a coordinator role than a management role?”
“Why?” he asks.
“Don’t you think they may feel like I’m an outsider coming in to tell them what to do?”
“But you’re not an outsider,” Dan says, “You’re an insider.”
“Well, I like to think I’m an insider and I feel like an insider, but I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes.”
At the next meeting of the IT/Research/Marketing team, Dan announces I head up IT. Immediately following the meeting, Tonny and Elias, our IT specialists, tell me how thrilled they are. It seems current management has been slow to push projects through. Well, not slow exactly. He simply fails to push anything through. So we’re all rather heady with ideas and dreams of making the e-center, our school’s computer lab, optimal for students and staff.
We’re also anxiously excited about purchasing a new file server and getting either a satellite connection or new wireless system for our internet access. That’s lots and lots of US dollars and we want to make the right choice, getting the right company who’ll provide technical support, etc.
I also want to clean up the computer lab. Imagine two rows of hodge podge CPU’s hooked up to monitors of all sizes, some with working CD roms and disc drives, others without working anything. Also imagine, at the back of the room, more than 200 monitors, CPUs, printer bodies, keyboards and broken pieces of this or that all stacked and piled and making an eyesore. Add in reams of “research” papers and it’s a real messy mess. Now it’s my messy mess.
My vision: two rows of computers with all components working optimally, all computers linked to both the internet and our internal network so folks can print and research on the net. Imagine all the computers sitting neatly on the tables, their wiring embedded in the console and hidden from view. Imagine consoles free of soda bottle caps and scraps of paper, a computer lab cleaned and mopped every day, not twice a week.
Three women here maintain vast amounts of vital and sensitive data on their computers. But their memory is so low, it takes 10 minutes for their computers to power up and five minutes for docs to open. They need new memory and new hard drives. And we’re going to get it for them!! We’ve also ordered a CD writer so Elias can go to every computer in this school and back up all content on CDs. Right now, we’re flirting with disaster in case the drives fail on any of our units. All our rural community research, stacks and stacks of data entered to SPSS, would be lost!! All our mailing lists and university policies and confidential docs, lost. Holy Cow!!
My dream for TICH is to have a computer on every staff member’s desk and have that computer connected to the internet all day long. Right now, we’re on dial-up. The more people logged on, the slower the system runs. So staff is discouraged from getting on the net. We are severely limited in accessing our partners and sister universities around the world. But all that will change.
I have dreams. The IT team sees these dreams. They’ve had these dreams for two years. Next week, we’re sorting the junk at the back of the computer lab. Some pieces will be discarded, some pieces will be donated to community-based organizations and some pieces will be stored for later use.
You’d be amazed at the junk that gets sent to Africa. Donors seem to use Africa as their dumping ground. For instance, a German organization donated 17 computers to TICH, but no monitors. And the computers were outdated. Frank, a fellow VSO volunteer in Ndhiwa, about 200 kms from Kisumu, said he found a secret room at the hospital where he works. The room was sealed and when maintenance opened it, the room was stacked with unusable stuff sent by donors. Stuff like a B3 Hammond organ, for instance. And two microfiche reading machines. We’re not even sure microfiche exists in Kenya.
It’s a new IT day at TICH. I’m still marketing and communication advisor, but now I get to learn about the world of Information Technology. This opportunity would have never existed for me in America. There are many opportunities that would not be available in the US. Of course, in the US, I’d have the opportunity to fill my belly with peanut M&Ms while drinking caramel macchiatos from Starbucks, things I'm missing like crazy. But in Africa, I get to fill my head instead.
“Why?” he asks.
“Don’t you think they may feel like I’m an outsider coming in to tell them what to do?”
“But you’re not an outsider,” Dan says, “You’re an insider.”
“Well, I like to think I’m an insider and I feel like an insider, but I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes.”
At the next meeting of the IT/Research/Marketing team, Dan announces I head up IT. Immediately following the meeting, Tonny and Elias, our IT specialists, tell me how thrilled they are. It seems current management has been slow to push projects through. Well, not slow exactly. He simply fails to push anything through. So we’re all rather heady with ideas and dreams of making the e-center, our school’s computer lab, optimal for students and staff.
We’re also anxiously excited about purchasing a new file server and getting either a satellite connection or new wireless system for our internet access. That’s lots and lots of US dollars and we want to make the right choice, getting the right company who’ll provide technical support, etc.
I also want to clean up the computer lab. Imagine two rows of hodge podge CPU’s hooked up to monitors of all sizes, some with working CD roms and disc drives, others without working anything. Also imagine, at the back of the room, more than 200 monitors, CPUs, printer bodies, keyboards and broken pieces of this or that all stacked and piled and making an eyesore. Add in reams of “research” papers and it’s a real messy mess. Now it’s my messy mess.
My vision: two rows of computers with all components working optimally, all computers linked to both the internet and our internal network so folks can print and research on the net. Imagine all the computers sitting neatly on the tables, their wiring embedded in the console and hidden from view. Imagine consoles free of soda bottle caps and scraps of paper, a computer lab cleaned and mopped every day, not twice a week.
Three women here maintain vast amounts of vital and sensitive data on their computers. But their memory is so low, it takes 10 minutes for their computers to power up and five minutes for docs to open. They need new memory and new hard drives. And we’re going to get it for them!! We’ve also ordered a CD writer so Elias can go to every computer in this school and back up all content on CDs. Right now, we’re flirting with disaster in case the drives fail on any of our units. All our rural community research, stacks and stacks of data entered to SPSS, would be lost!! All our mailing lists and university policies and confidential docs, lost. Holy Cow!!
My dream for TICH is to have a computer on every staff member’s desk and have that computer connected to the internet all day long. Right now, we’re on dial-up. The more people logged on, the slower the system runs. So staff is discouraged from getting on the net. We are severely limited in accessing our partners and sister universities around the world. But all that will change.
I have dreams. The IT team sees these dreams. They’ve had these dreams for two years. Next week, we’re sorting the junk at the back of the computer lab. Some pieces will be discarded, some pieces will be donated to community-based organizations and some pieces will be stored for later use.
You’d be amazed at the junk that gets sent to Africa. Donors seem to use Africa as their dumping ground. For instance, a German organization donated 17 computers to TICH, but no monitors. And the computers were outdated. Frank, a fellow VSO volunteer in Ndhiwa, about 200 kms from Kisumu, said he found a secret room at the hospital where he works. The room was sealed and when maintenance opened it, the room was stacked with unusable stuff sent by donors. Stuff like a B3 Hammond organ, for instance. And two microfiche reading machines. We’re not even sure microfiche exists in Kenya.
It’s a new IT day at TICH. I’m still marketing and communication advisor, but now I get to learn about the world of Information Technology. This opportunity would have never existed for me in America. There are many opportunities that would not be available in the US. Of course, in the US, I’d have the opportunity to fill my belly with peanut M&Ms while drinking caramel macchiatos from Starbucks, things I'm missing like crazy. But in Africa, I get to fill my head instead.
posted by Cindi at 10:52 AM
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