IHS

fred is now updated!

hi every one thanks for keeping posting .am sorry for most of you who have been missing me but the good news is am still live and kickin and the truth is that am back in action! so i will keep posting .just coming..

Who cares

It doesn’t look like much, but this is really a heartbreaking picture sequence. The fist picture shows the lab at St. John’s Wakitaka in all it’s glory. The second shows the lab after we ripped out all the nComputing desktops.

Seven months ago, I created a contract for St. John’s. The contract stated that the school would care for the equipment. We assigned financial penalties with infractions. If we found fingerprints on a monitor it wold cost then 10,000/= (about $5US). But each penalty was created to teach them something about how to care for the equipment. At the end of a successful six month training period, we would turn the classroom over to the school, confident that they could care for the machines. If they followed the rules, there would be no penalties, and the classroom would be theirs, free of charge. They would have a free lab, and we would have confidence that the significant investment in them would not be wasted.

Six months passed, and the school hadn’t signed the contract. However, the school was using (and abusing) our equipment. We were stuck with repair and maintenance bills and the staff and students could operate with complete impunity since they hadn’t signed the contract. We pressed for the signing of the contract and were met with more excuses.

At this point, we locked the classroom, hoping to force a decision on the issue.

Two months later, the contract was still not signed. The headmistress offered lame excuses, like “I forgot to bring the contract to the board meeting,” and other such things. I called the chairman of the board, Firipo and asked for a meeting.

He graciously accepted me into his home and explained that the contract couldn’t be signed because the penalties seemed too steep. We explained our position. We couldn’t give them a free classroom. It wouldn’t teach them anything, and in months the classroom would be ruined. In the end, I reluctantly agreed to redraft the contract. I removed the financial penalties, but reiterated that after a certain number of penalties in a month the classroom would be removed permanently. Deep down I knew this was a mistake, but I agreed to do it none the less. This meeting occurred on April 23. I produced the limited contract on April 26th, against my better judgement.  On May 31, I emailed Firipo again seeking a status and he informed me that, “The Headmistress had not yet made contanct (sic) with other stakeholders in the school to get thier consentor (sic) views.”

I replied to him on June 1 saying that:

“The headmistress has really not taken this issue seriously enough. I
understand there are holidays, but the new contract has been in play
for an entire month. She has wasted every opportunity to address this
issue, and has failed with every extension, including this latest one
that put our equipment at risk.

I have done everything I can to work with St. John’s in this matter,
but the staff has left me no choice. Our equipment is sitting unused
and is is uncared for and is spoiling. We will remove the equipment
this week.”

His response came on June 3:

“Iam humbly requesting you to hold on with your action for another week.
When  I am back in Jinja I will go and talk to her.”

I did not want to wait another week. I KNEW it wouldn’t make a difference. I didn’t reply to his email, but I waited for a week.

There was, of course no movement on the (now FREE) contract, and no more emails from Firipo. The rumor was that the board would meet on Friday June 18th to discuss the contract.

So after much deliberation, Fred and I came to St. John’s yesterday (June 17, two full weeks after the requested extension) and removed the nComputing systems. This was the “new” part of the classroom. I decided to leave the used laptops for them, but even this was against my better judgement. However, I agreed to help St. John’s years ago, and I felt bad leaving them empty-handed. Further, the Hon Migereko, who is a great man, asked us to do this project and I didn’t want to disappoint him. However, the school administration has failed him, actively refusing a $30,000 investment, squabbling over quarters.

I printed up this notice and posted it on the locked lab door:

“To the staff of St. John’s Wakitaka-

We regret to inform you that the 12 new desktop stations have been permanently removed from this computer lab, leaving only the laptops. The reason for this is that the administration of this school has refused to sign a contract stating that they will properly care for this equipment. We have waited for seven months for the school administration to sign this contract, and this shows that the school is prepared for the substantial investment of new equipment. Had they acted in a more timely manner, the equipment would remain, but their lack of attention to this matter can no longer be ignored.

This computer lab marks an enormous investment in St. Johns, and we are unwilling to leave new equipment in the hands of an administration that is unable to commit to the maintenance and protection of that equipment.

A meeting of the school board has been scheduled for Friday, and the contract is again under review. If, at that point, the contract is signed, the remaining laptops will stay in the lab. Otherwise, the laptops will also be removed.

We are saddened by this turn of events. At Hackers For Charity, we prioritize ICT education, and understand the disappointment this will cause the student body. However, we can not stand alongside a school administration that does not share this priority.

Hackers For Charity.org”

Within moments, the school deputy took down the sign and requested a meeting with me. I didn’t return his call.

I felt heartbroken over the situation, but I knew that our investment in St John’s was wasted. This was not a school that cared about ICT training. They wanted a free gift, and wanted us to just go away. I’ve seen the result of that kind of arrangement. I see it reflected in the smeared visage of ancient, dusty CRT monitors. I’ve seen it in the mountains of spoiled unused techno garbage that litter countless thousands of computer classrooms all over the country. I’ll be damned if I’ll contribute to the ICT dung heap of this country.

That day, I visited two more schools in Bugembe: St Florence and Wanyange Girl’s school. Wanyange Girls’ School boasted over 70 computer workstations, most of them nComputing terminals. They were well maintained and running very smoothly. The lab at St Florence was tiny, but spotless. I could have eaten off the floor. The place was amazing. Wanyange in particular sparked my interest, as they wanted to open their lab to the community. More on that later.

But the point of this post is that I’ve moved on from St. John’s. At this point, I’ve learned a valuable lesson about computer classrooms in Uganda. I’ve seen the difference between schools that care about computer education and ones that don’t.

And I’ll never again work with a school that doesn’t care.

Photos

Another photo run. Enjoy!

This is the crew of carpenters and tailors that came from Kampala to build the cafe furniture. They worked through the nigh sanding, staining and putting finishing touches on our stuff.

There’s certain things I wish I didn’t know about what goes on in our kitchen. Here’s some of our cafe staff working on … some pork.

Jen’s face says it all.

Here’s our "new" grinder next to our amazing espresso machine. The grinder is 10+ years old but it works like a champ. It’s dinged up a bit, but it fit our budget.

I’ve had 100% of my CPU churning on coffee for the past week. Here’s James leading a training class for our baristas. I’ve had to really dig into learning everything I can about the coffee business and the art of espresso for the past few weeks. Even though we have some very well-trained baristas, none of them have ever worked on a machine of this caliber before.

Here’s Jacquie, our floor manager dosing her first shot.

I have to throw in some pictures of the lights we got for the Keep. Jen found them and they are AWESOME!1!!

The wall lanters are pretty cool too.

This is one of the front doors to our place. I love the woodwork. Sweet.

And here is the logo for The Keep. All those hours in Photoshop are paying off. Or at least that’s what I tell myself.

Funny hat

I’m used to wearing different hats. I’m a Christian and a hacker, and a husband and a father. No big deal. But lately, I’ve started realizing that one of my hats is very strange, and utterly consuming. Somehow, I ended up in the restaurant business. The path was straight and clear. The land and the staff and (some of) the money “fell into our laps”. It was a God Thing, pure and simple.

So I’m not questioning the path. It’s just that several times each day I scratch my head and marvel at the fact that I’m neck deep in the day-to-day struggles of opening a restaurant. I say “I” a lot, but it’s more than just me. Jen and I have both been working 16 hour days as we approach the opening. We’re ordering supplies, tweaking and typing recipes, typing up training manuals, managing the construction at the site, training kitchen, coffee and floor staff, conferring with our managers, trying to stretch every dollar eight miles (kilometers), and generally running around like crazy people.

Our staff, which now numbers somewhere around twenty people (!) has been working hard training and preparing in a world that’s completely foreign to them. The restaurant will be Western by every standard. The food will be excellent and consistent, the staff will be prompt and attentive and above all, the customer will be treated like royalty. It’s a completely new paradigm for them (our staff and the customers in Jinja).

And for now, we’re shelling out money hand over fist. By investing the money I make from gigs, we’re taking an enormous gamble, but we’re diving in head first because this thing can work. And if it does we won’t have to beg for money from our donors forever. We’ll have something sustainable that will fuel our work here for as long as we’re here… however long that will be.

I still wear my geek hat with pride, though. I spend an awful lot of time jamming on my laptop, but it’s different than it used to be. I’m working on training material for the center, laying out certificates, wrangling PDF’s for student handouts, doing logo design and layout for price lists and banners, working on marketing strategies for the center, creating custom training ISO’s, searching out new content and partners and every now and then I get to spend a few minutes teaching our staff Linux and Back Track and other sorts of tech goodness. I’m also working on the creation of a Jinja Linux User Group, as well as a Ugandan Information Security Group. I hacked a Ugandan government security system (with permission of course) and I’m really Jonesing for some fellow learned geeks to jam with here in Uganda. This has come into sharp relief for me especially after the Offensive Security and Pauldotcom podcasts. I miss the community something fierce.

So, yeah, it’s a funny new hat. But I’m not ready to get rid of my other ones just yet.

Hack For Charity!

The Offensive Security Group just plain rocks. They’re one of our biggest supporters, and they’re at it again. The first “How Strong Is Your Fu” (HSIYF) hacking challenge was a HUGE success. The sequel looks just stunning, and the OffSec crew is sending us all of the proceeds! Check out their page here, or read the blurb below for more info:

Our second cyber hacking challenge from Offensive Security is on it’s way. Registration to “How Strong is your Fu – For Charity” has begun! Offsec has teamed up with the crew at Hackers For Charity and the world’s premier Hacker Con – BlackHat, to provide another amazing Cyber Hacking Challenge with a whole new level of pain.  Our goal is to raise $5000 for HFC as well as provide a world class cyber hacking event. The prizes? 1st place gets a BlackHat Vegas Conference Ticket (no travel included) , 2nd place gets a CTP Online Course from Offensive Security. Wowz!

Unlike our previous challenge, seats to this tournament will be limited, and require a registration fee of 49.00 $US. All proceeds from this event go to the HFC, and their efforts in East Africa.

Click here to find out more info and to register!

Thanks for “hacking for charity” with us and the OffSec crew!

Some Photos

Here’s a few photos to describe what’s going on! Enjoy!

Jen and I celebrated our 17th anniversary! This is the SECOND anniversary we’ve celebrated in Uganda. The first was back in 2007 during my first trip to Uganda.

This is the trading license for the CTC. Without it, hordes of public officials descend upon your premises demanding justice. It’s happened once. Fred deflected them expertly.

This is the trading license for The Keep.

After much prayer our AMAZING espresso machine has finally arrived in Uganda. This is the top of the line, most AMAZING machine. Thanks to Chris Duke who handled shipping, Bruce White who got us a great deal and to Ron Martin who found us two donated machines to offset the cost, the machine is here in Uganda, and might ultimately be free. This thing is AMAZING. It’s in our house right now until the coffee bar in the cafe is finished.

This is James, our new barista. He competed in the East African barista competition and he really knows his stuff. He used some nasty beans we had around and some not-so-quality milk and he made a wicked cup of Cappuccino.

Jen got the honor of the first cup. She said it needed more sugar! =D

Jenny, on the other hand, LOVED IT. She’s a mocha monster now, pestering me to make more more more more more. twitch*

Here’s some photos of the cafe as it’s coming together. This is the main room. The gray paint adds to the “dungeon / hall / castle” thing we have going.

The paint over by the game rooms. XBOX on left, Wii on the right.

The far wall of the main room.

Here’s one side of the working kitchen. Tile is so nice!

Another side of the working kitchen.

Far shot of the tea room.

Here’s the outside of the tea room by the garden. The painting is finally finished!

Here’s the inside of the tea room filled with some of our “dining room” chairs.

The outside of the working kitchen. The tile is new, as is the paint.

Here’s a far shot of the garden. It really is quite beautiful. We’re excited about this cafe. I can’t wait to see it generate some revenue to help fund our computer training and other programs here in Uganda!

A day in Kampala

Where to start? How about Kampala. Jen and I headed out on Thursday morning with a pretty simple agenda. I had to get a filling, pick up some paperwork for the filing of our business in Uganda, we had to check on the cafe furniture and we had to shop for a few more various items for the cafe. The ride in was uneventful, as was the filling. This, of course, is saying a lot, especially considering my past experiences with Ugandan dentistry. I dropped Jen off at Nakumatt to  start scoping out prices for all sorts of kitchen minutiae while I took a boda (motorcycle) to the lawyer’s. After months of paperwork, the lawyer delivered a small victory.

This marks the founding of Hackers For Charity, Ltd, the official business operating name of HFC-Uganda. This means we can run businesses in Uganda including the Training Center and Cafe and I can apply for a work permit which allows us to stay in country longer. I have accepted the role of Chief Executive within the company and Isaac (our lawyer) is the secretary. That felt weird because Isaac drafted a letter offering me the position and I wrote a letter accepting the job. Strange, but official. Next, I’ll open a business account and then we can apply for a work permit. Interestingly enough, the business account requires MUCH more paperwork than a US account. It requires a (Certified) company resolution as well as the original filing documents for the company.

Back at Nakumatt, Jen found amazing lights for the cafe and we picked up quite a few items (meat grinders, carpets, salt shakers, etc) that we needed as well. We also met briefly with James, a young barista working in Kampala who we’re courting for the cafe. (We hired him yesterday, so that’s a huge relief. We didn’t have the coffee staff worked out yet.)

We ate a bit of lunch, then headed to the carpenter who was making the cafe furniture.  I should have known better than to trust this guy. Moses had short, nappy dreads, a ripped shirt and bad teeth. But these are cosmetic things which I can hardly hold against him, but the guy was just shifty. He was either high or drunk or both and he was three months late on our furniture. We called him and he told us the furniture was finished. When we showed up, we found the furniture unfinished and the tables all wrong. Our “dining room” tables were 15″ wide and easily 6″ too high. The chairs were not sanded and mostly unfinished, and the cushions weren’t even started. It was a bad situation. We walked two stalls down to find Ivan, a clean-cut young carpenter and placed an order with him. He promised to have the furniture delivered within a week, he called a delivery truck to help us get our unfinished furniture back to Jinja, he talked to the tailor to schedule delivery of our cushions, and he even offered to come to Jinja to finish the work that Moses started. Now it’s quite possible that Ivan’s lying to us too, but at least we have the majority of our furniture in Jinja and we have access to Ivan and other local carpenters to help finish the work.

We rolled into Jinja just as it was getting dark and unloaded our nearly full truck.

We spent a small fortune on cafe stuff in Kampala on Tuesday. Our money situation is rather dubious for a lot of reasons. The biggest reason is that I tend to shy away from using HFC funds for the cafe and we end up using our personal funds from gigs that I work. Even though the cafe is meant to be the primary funding source for HFC’s operations here in Uganda, I still feel odd spending the money on a restaurant because I’m afraid it may not be true to the spirit of how donors would like to see the money spent. It’s not computer stuff. But until the Computer Training Center is profitable, somebody has to pay rent and power and water in the center, even if it’s not exciting. It’s the same with the cafe. The profits from the center will fund the center and all our other projects here in the country, so I’m going to have to use more HFC funds to get the cafe off the ground. But things are moving along. The money from our monthly supporters keeps us running as a family, and with some HFC funds and gig money floating the cafe, we hope to be self-supporting as an organization and as a family before the end of the year. It’s an aggressive timetable.

So that was Kampala… A long day, as always, but pretty productive. More later.

Riding high

Well, I’m back from Jordan. What an amazing country, filled with amazing people. Hospitable to a fault, genuine and hard-working, they were not as they appeared on the news stations. The more I travel, the more I get frustrated with the one-sided negativity of the press. It’s really oppressive and overwhelming.

But I want to share a picture from Jordan before I catch you up with what’s going on in Uganda.

—————

Yes, yes. It’s PETRA, one of the seven wonder of the world. A really amazing place. But the one thing that stuck with me was the horse ride and (especially) the camel ride. My perspective changed the moment I legged up onto that camel. When he stood up, I was instantly seven feet taller than everyone around me. It was literally a different perspective on the world. Instantly, (other) tourists wanted my picture. EVERY SINGLE tourist I passed either took my picture or gawked at me. Maybe they were gawking at the T-Shirt, but I don’t think so. I think it was a normal reaction to the seven-foot-high, three quarter ton spitting, barking, flea-bitten, irritable dessert monster itself, or possible to the (probably) half-insane, snack-sized human that thought sitting on top of it was a good idea.

I was in an elevated position. I had the high ground. I was the man. None of the (other) tourists knew that I had zero clue about how to ride a camel, but that was beside he point. I looked and felt quite natural on the thing. Yes, I was wearing shorts and an “I hack charities” T-Shirt, but that wasn’t readily obvious. What stood out was the perfectly-tied keffiyeh (head scarf) and (I think) the fact that I did, in fact look and feel quite natural. As if me and my ancestors before me were real-honest to goodness dessert-dwellers. True Bedouins. It all came together, in one pivotal moment when I understood. I got an unexpected glimpse into history and world culture.

People riding animals were people of means. IT was simple thing that somehow I had missed all the years of my life.

There are those pictures of Lawrence of Arabia on camel-back and George Washington on horseback and they’re nice. But after less than an hour on a horse and a camel, I’ll never see those pictures the same way again.

So yes, Petra was pretty amazing. It was the place Indiana Jones should have ended his career (because that fourth movie wasn’t that great). But for me, that camel ride opened my eyes. It was an experience I’ll never forget.

Shame I couldn’t fit it in my luggage.

Enjoy the pic. =)

T-Shirt Fail

Seems I’ve ticked off some very nice people.

Our T-Shirts are conversation pieces. They generate a lot of questions about what we do, and they have become a steady stream of income for us. But lately, people have been ordering T-Shirts and they haven’t received them.

We lost our T-Shirt volunteer a while back (she did a great job, but with a toddler around, the work became overwhelming) and it’s been over a year since I had to process T-Shirts. I honestly didn’t know what I was doing since our volunteer handled all of this.

So I went in search of another volunteer, and several people offered to help. I chose Ralph, who not only had a home office but had a wife and daughter who were willing to help balance the workload.

Right at the time I was transferring the responsibility to Ralph, I started traveling pretty extensively (visited home for a while, bounced to Jordan for a bit of work, etc) and the transfer wasn’t as clean as it could have been. I didn’t send him the shirts very quickly, and the orders kept coming in (and backing up).

Then, we ran into our most recent problem with PayPal. I wanted to create a new account so the volunteer could have their own account for T-Shirt income, shipping, etc as opposed to the old method whereby the volunteer had access to the entire HFC account. The problem is that the PayPal account must be verified.

This happens one of two ways. We can either link it to a bank account or we can set up a PayPal Credit card. I don’t want a credit card because it would have to be in my name, and I’m unemployed and don’t need any more credit hassles. That leaves us with the bank account option. The problem is that the HFC bank account is already linked to the HFC PayPal account. So I’m out of bank accounts.

We can’t “accept” money in PayPal until we verify the account.

So anyhow, I’m sorry for the delays and the mixup. It looks absolutely awful when someone pays money to a .org run by hackers and then the goods don’t arrive. But please know that despite the problems, we are now shipping shirts, and working on getting the PayPal thing straightened out. From a higher perspective, I’m sorry for how this must have looked. Customers were getting zero response (thanks to my perpetual mountain of email, and my inability to keep up with it all) and that made things worse. Personally, I pride myself in stretching every single donated dollar to the max. We have almost ZERO overhead, meaning that nearly all of the donated money goes right into our programs.

Know that I appreciate your continued support and understanding. I, for one, have a LOT to learn about running a program this big. HFC is certainly bigger than I can handle, and thankfully that’s more often a blessing than a curse.

Johnny

Adventures in Jordan

Our first outing in Jordan was so much more than sightseeing for me. I’m still getting my brain wrapped around it. I hope my work doesn’t drown it out.

This was taken in an area that used to be known as Bethany. El-Maghtas is one of the most important recent discoveries in biblical archaeology. Excavations only began here in 1996, following Jordan’s peace treaty with Israel in 1994, but have already uncovered more than 20 churches, caves and baptismal pools dating from the Roman and Byzantine periods. Although the identification is not absolutely certain, archaeology has shown that the area known as Wadi Kharrar has long been believed to be the biblical Bethany-beyond-the-Jordan, where John the Baptist lived. The pool in the background, according to extremely compelling archeological evidence, is the pool where Jesus was baptized. This area is also associated with the ascension of the Prophet Elijah into heaven, which is commemorated at a hill called Tell Mar Elias.

This is a view of the baptism site from the other side.

A typical path along the Jordan.

A Greek Orthodox church near the Jordan, just past Jesus’ baptism site.

At the Jordan River just steps from the Isreali border.

Jericho in the distance. the bridge shows where Elijah ascended into heaven.

This is me fishing at the Dead Sea.

The road less traveled.

A view of the Dead Sea climbing towards the Fortress Mukawar.

We’re not in Israel anymore….

See those pillars in the distance? We’re going to walk over there. You’ll read why in a moment.

This photo shows the fortress of Mukawer. I’ll let you read the sign on this one.

“Mt Nebo is an elevated ridge that is approximately 817 meters (2680 feet) above sea level, in what is now western Jordan. The view from the summit provides a panorama of the Holy Land and, to the north, a more limited one of the valley of the River Jordan. The West Bank city of Jericho is usually visible from the summit, as is Jerusalem and Bethlehem on a clear day.” “According to the final chapter of Deuteronomy, Mount Nebo is where the Hebrew prophet Moses was given a view of the promised land that God was giving to the Israelites. “And Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho.” (Deuteronomy 34:1). According to Jewish and Christian tradition, Moses was buried on this mountain by God Himself, and his final resting place is unknown. According to the 2 Maccabees 2:4-7, the Prophet Jeremiah hid the tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant here.”