dsd’s weblog

Continuing from part 1:

After several hours of preparation in the gloomy hours of Tuesday morning, we hopped in the truck and returned to the school of Tiniente Fariña to deliver laptops to the students who attend the morning shift. Everything went smoothly, as the teachers had already learned the handout process from doing it in the previous afternoon.

Following on, we delivered to the rural school of Daniel Ortellado. Like many schools, this one has now been themed for OLPC by the students and community. You can see one of the several XO logos freshly painted on the exterior in the photo below, and note the new colours of the classroom interior.

Next up was the lovely school of Profesor Cabrera, slightly off out into the countryside. We arrived with perfect timing; the children were lined up in the courtyard, teachers and parents seated, ready to commence the ceremony. This video captures the excitement. Soon after, the children began to chant ‘X-O-X-O’ at the tops of their voices. After some brief talks including one from the governor of Caacupé, we handed over 6 laptops (one to each child from each grade) and then moved into the classrooms to hand over the rest.

In the afternoon, we headed to Cristo Rey. This school was a little different, as at least for the younger grades, all the parents were present and they were the recipients of the laptops (before passing them onto their children later). The sheer number of people in the school made things a little more chaotic, but it was evident that the teachers had planned the procedure in advance and were well prepared for the handout.

We used Wednesday to take care of some of the smaller schools. Bright and early was Raúl Peña. It was interesting to see children head straight for the internet in this school, whereas in other places, Speak and Record were the first instant-hit activity epidemics. This school is located near the main WiMaX base station which provides internet to all 10 schools, and hence has an impressively speedy connection. The internet connections are provided for free by Personal, a loyal sponsor of the project.

Next up, we delivered to Santa Teresita Cabañas, a rural school. This school is tiny but in some ways that made the event even more significant; the children and parents had actually turned up eagerly in the morning even though we told them that we would not be arriving until the afternoon! They held a very cute ceremony with an impressive dance performance, and then we handed out laptops to the entire school on-stage.

Somehow still on schedule, we headed to Dr Pino to conclude the day, another rural school. Many parents were in attendance of the handout.

more photos on flickr.
Continue reading part 3.

Tags: paraguay

This entry was posted on Sunday, April 26th, 2009 at 8:00 pm and is filed under Gentoo, OLPC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.