Computer Time

I’m happy to report that, at long last, the Namumu Children’s Computer Training Program is up and running. Boo ya.

We knew we needed to start it long ago. The Namumu management team has been talking about doing it for months now. The kids have been ready and willing to get started. Zambia National AIDS Network (ZNAN), a Zambian aid organization, donated a desktop computer to us last year and we have a few functional (albeit virus-laden) laptops lying around, so the resources have been in place. I guess the reason I didn’t push to start things sooner was that I found out how badly many of our kids’ reading skills sucked and tried to tackle that problem first. But now, since a lot of the kids are reading better and I have some help, it’s computer time.

Vinod (the Indian [dots not feathers] VSO volunteer), Kebby (Namumu’s charismatic boys caregiver) and I are all getting in on the action and teaching the kids basic computer skills. Kebby has been getting the boys working every night on his laptop in the boys’ dormitory and Vinod and I are working with different pairs of girls most evenings in the Namumu front office. It’s always a long, painfully slow process getting them started, but we’ve had a number of fast learners and many of them are doing much better.

My ultimate goal is to build up a small army of computer hackers capable of penetrating government databases and performing other such stealthy operations. As for now, we’re starting off slowly, focusing on opening, saving and closing Word documents and trying to get them typing at faster than 3 words per minute. We’ll get there. These are bright kids.

Along with computer lessons, I’ve taken it upon myself to drop some culture on the girls I’ve worked with as well. One of the computers we’re working on is my old laptop which has a good amount of music still on it. When the girls are typing we crank it up and have a good ol’ time. So far I’ve hit them with the Beatles, Boyz II Men, Tupac Shakur and Johnny Cash because dangit my girls are going to have well-rounded tastes. They really hate Johnny Cash, but I don’t care, I’m the boss and they are going to listen to what I say they are going to listen to and I will continue to ram it down their throats until they give in and learn to appreciate it.

So, overall it’s all going well. I’ll try to keep you updated on their progress.