Easter and Forthcoming Travels

Due to the different (older-based-on-Coptic) Ge'ez calendar followed by the Orthodox and Catholic Churches, Easter is this weekend in Eritrea and (to return briefly to a previous theme) it's the time when whole families of goats tremble following 40 days of self-denial for Lent plus, just to ensure a good appetite, a day's worth of total fasting on Good Friday. In Asmara this morning it was noticeable that there was livestock being transported everywhere both dead and alive (goats, cows, chickens but no pigs – orthodox Christians do not eat pork).

Three weeks from now I may get the chance to travel to some quite remote areas of Eritrea as part of the schools' solar power project - travel permits have still to be granted, though, so this may change. What is happening is that, thanks to the efforts of a former VSO volunteer from Ireland, the Irish Government's Irish Aid charity is providing the bulk of the funds to allow solar power kits to be installed in selected remote schools.

In order to qualify schools have to be not connected to the electricity grid and also to have no prospect of being so in the foreseeable future.

The aim is to allow the running of small computer labs in order to alleviate the situation where such schools slip further and further behind in terms of the teaching of computer skills.

My role in the project will be to ensure the computers are installed and running and to provide basic computer training for selected school staff members in order that teaching of the schools' students can start once all the equipment is installed - it will mean travelling to the extreme heat of the lowlands of Eritrea but I'm really looking forward to seeing other ways of life and other peoples including the quaint way in which nomadic tribes are swapping their camels for 4x4 pick-up trucks.

My job in Asmara is ostensibly trainer for teachers at the Ministry's training centre but it has also turned out to be more since that is largely a school summer-break occupation. So, alongside my Eritrean colleagues, I am also working on the Ministry's new web-site (for the technically minded we have decided to use the well-tried triumvirate of Apache, PHP and MySQL as our core technologies). In addition we are also working on getting internal email running and working out the technical issues involved in hosting an Education Management Information database.

The good thing for me is I get to program which I still really like after all these years though I need to guard against being the only programmer working on our projects – there are, however, signs of others wishing to learn so hopefully we will be able to have our own version of "sustainable [web-site] development".

I also have stacks of research to do on education web-sites, securing internet sites properly, e-learning (which is in it's infancy in Eritrea) and education data management in general so if anybody has ideas on online resources for any of the aforementioned please drop me an email.

P