Last weekend, Susan and I volunteered to help with a food drive for drought victims in Kenya. We went to a village area called Dungicha, which is only about 1.5 hour drive northwest of Kilifi (not far at all, but the dirt roads slow you down!). It was a really good experience and we had fun while also helping some people. We gave out an amazing amount of food, which consisted of 2.5 kg of lard, 6 kg of rice, 6 kg of lentils, and 20 kg of corn flour, plus some sugar and salt. It was nice to be able to give that much food, but it was amazing to think that one or two women would have to carry all that weight (on their heads, of course!) while walking for probably several miles. It really makes one appreciate how easy some of us have it in this world.
Here are some photos: http://picasaweb.google.com/barckhoff/VolunteeringInKenya
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Getting an internet connection
We are lucky enough to be able to get an Internet connection at home via a uni-directional microwave (micro as in small, not the sort that cooks your food) mast that is connected to the network at the medical center where we're working. The Internet is connected to the house next door, but not to our house (which is the guest house of the house next door), despite the fact that the mast is actually closer to our house. I brought my modem from Australia (which, thankfully, I did NOT dump as ballast when my suitcase was over the weight limit), which also happens to have LAN ports, so I could easily link up to the hub at the other house. Only thing was, I had a 3 foot Ethernet cable and I needed something closer to 40 meters!
So, I asked the IT guys at the medical center to get me a quote for a 50 meter cable (a little extra, just in case). After several weeks of waiting, they finally gave me a quote for an entire SPOOL of Ethernet cable, which is 350 meters. WAY more than I needed. Then, they tried to sell me an outdoor wireless modem, which would cost more than double the 350 meter cable to buy and install. Mind you, it took about a month to get this quote. In the meantime, my office mate, Tony, said he knew a guy who could sell me some cable, but I wanted to wait to get the quote from the other guys (not realizing how long it would take). Finally, after I got the ridiculous "more than I need" quotes, I called Tony's friend, and he said he could bring it the next day. Hallelujah!
Then, Tony's friend calls him and then Tony tells me that it would be two 20 metre cables that I could connect together. I said, no I don't want them to connect together because they have to be outside and I don't want the connections getting rained on, etc. I said I wanted a continuous outdoor cable, 50 meters. So he called his friend to tell him this, and then the friend brought a 50 meter *indoor* cable. Ugh. Well, I figured, it's still got plastic around it and Tony tells me that I can put it inside a tube that I can get at the hardware store. So, okay, I bought the cable (which, by the way was ten times cheaper than the 350 meter cable), but now it didn't have connectors on the ends (to plug into the hub/modem). So, Tony goes into town, procures some RJ-45 connectors and then asks the hardware guy at the medical center to put the connectors on. A couple days go by and I bug him to finish the job and I finally get my cable with connectors on Friday afternoon. I take the cable home and connect it up, it works -- yay! But now I have to go buy a tube to protect it from sun/rain, etc. So, Saturday, I go buy a tube (actually a PVC garden hose) and try it out on the cable. Damn, the connector is too fat to go through the tube. Now, a dilemma: do I remove the connector, wait until Monday and then ask the guy to reattach the connector, or do I slice the hose down the side, put the cable inside, then tape it up with duct tape (a perfectly DIY redneck sort of thing to do).
I decided I didn't want to be without the cable any longer, so I painstakingly cut the 18 meter hose (the houses are actually pretty close together and much of the cable has to go inside the houses) lengthwise with a pair of pruning shears that Susan just happened to buy while we were at the hardware store. I then slip the cable inside the hose through it's new seam (this really is much easier than pushing it through the hose, I'm sure!). In the meantime, Susan and I had gone to the beach with some friends for the afternoon and now it was evening and the hardware store is closed, so I can't buy any tape and Susan would really like to get online...
So, we decide to string the cable between the houses and hook it back up, with the hose with the split along it gaping in places. We put it through the shutters of the upstairs window, over the outside kitchen door light, sort of tie it to a pipe and then over a decorative turret thingy between the walls around the houses, then under the eaves of the roof and through the window of the neighbors house (there is no glass on the window, only iron bars -- it's warm here). The cable is then pushed through a series of other indoor windows and holes in one of the bathrooms, then hung on some wall lights. It's strung inside the neighbor's house like a string of Christmas lights. Finally, after all that, it's connected to the Internet hub in the middle of the house (mind you, this house is pretty large).
I did buy little cable clips to attach the cable to the wall and make it look nicer, but we don't have a hammer yet... So, who knows if we'll actually get around to sealing up the PVC hose with duct tape? Maybe it doesn't matter? Who cares if the rains come and fill up the hose? Surely, it's the sun that's a bigger threat, and now it's got some protection from that. The indoor cable still has a plastic coating... it can't be that bad... Besides, we might not live in this house very long...
And the best part is, we now have a nice, full-throttle 54 Mbps Internet connection.
So, I asked the IT guys at the medical center to get me a quote for a 50 meter cable (a little extra, just in case). After several weeks of waiting, they finally gave me a quote for an entire SPOOL of Ethernet cable, which is 350 meters. WAY more than I needed. Then, they tried to sell me an outdoor wireless modem, which would cost more than double the 350 meter cable to buy and install. Mind you, it took about a month to get this quote. In the meantime, my office mate, Tony, said he knew a guy who could sell me some cable, but I wanted to wait to get the quote from the other guys (not realizing how long it would take). Finally, after I got the ridiculous "more than I need" quotes, I called Tony's friend, and he said he could bring it the next day. Hallelujah!
Then, Tony's friend calls him and then Tony tells me that it would be two 20 metre cables that I could connect together. I said, no I don't want them to connect together because they have to be outside and I don't want the connections getting rained on, etc. I said I wanted a continuous outdoor cable, 50 meters. So he called his friend to tell him this, and then the friend brought a 50 meter *indoor* cable. Ugh. Well, I figured, it's still got plastic around it and Tony tells me that I can put it inside a tube that I can get at the hardware store. So, okay, I bought the cable (which, by the way was ten times cheaper than the 350 meter cable), but now it didn't have connectors on the ends (to plug into the hub/modem). So, Tony goes into town, procures some RJ-45 connectors and then asks the hardware guy at the medical center to put the connectors on. A couple days go by and I bug him to finish the job and I finally get my cable with connectors on Friday afternoon. I take the cable home and connect it up, it works -- yay! But now I have to go buy a tube to protect it from sun/rain, etc. So, Saturday, I go buy a tube (actually a PVC garden hose) and try it out on the cable. Damn, the connector is too fat to go through the tube. Now, a dilemma: do I remove the connector, wait until Monday and then ask the guy to reattach the connector, or do I slice the hose down the side, put the cable inside, then tape it up with duct tape (a perfectly DIY redneck sort of thing to do).
I decided I didn't want to be without the cable any longer, so I painstakingly cut the 18 meter hose (the houses are actually pretty close together and much of the cable has to go inside the houses) lengthwise with a pair of pruning shears that Susan just happened to buy while we were at the hardware store. I then slip the cable inside the hose through it's new seam (this really is much easier than pushing it through the hose, I'm sure!). In the meantime, Susan and I had gone to the beach with some friends for the afternoon and now it was evening and the hardware store is closed, so I can't buy any tape and Susan would really like to get online...
So, we decide to string the cable between the houses and hook it back up, with the hose with the split along it gaping in places. We put it through the shutters of the upstairs window, over the outside kitchen door light, sort of tie it to a pipe and then over a decorative turret thingy between the walls around the houses, then under the eaves of the roof and through the window of the neighbors house (there is no glass on the window, only iron bars -- it's warm here). The cable is then pushed through a series of other indoor windows and holes in one of the bathrooms, then hung on some wall lights. It's strung inside the neighbor's house like a string of Christmas lights. Finally, after all that, it's connected to the Internet hub in the middle of the house (mind you, this house is pretty large).
I did buy little cable clips to attach the cable to the wall and make it look nicer, but we don't have a hammer yet... So, who knows if we'll actually get around to sealing up the PVC hose with duct tape? Maybe it doesn't matter? Who cares if the rains come and fill up the hose? Surely, it's the sun that's a bigger threat, and now it's got some protection from that. The indoor cable still has a plastic coating... it can't be that bad... Besides, we might not live in this house very long...
And the best part is, we now have a nice, full-throttle 54 Mbps Internet connection.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Photos from Kilifi
OK, so I'm too lazy to write about anything, but I did at least getting around to posting some photos of Kilifi. Here are photos from Mnarani Club, Arab mosque ruins (ca. 14th century) from Mnarani village area, the Kilifi Boat Yard, photos of the house we're staying in and some photos from a sunset sail on a dhow that we went on with some new friends.
http://picasaweb.google.com/barckhoff/KilifiFebruary2009
Enjoy!
http://picasaweb.google.com/barckhoff/KilifiFebruary2009
Enjoy!
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