MAGAN'S WORLD:Manchán Magan's tales of a travel addict
WHY IS IT that, although having a relationship with one’s trusty Remington or Underwood was considered bohemian, showing similar affection for a computer is, at best, geekish? Writers in the past were free to fetishise the thrust action of their typewriters or the eleganceof a well-turned platen knob, but admitting that I miss my laptop and am relieved to hear news of how she’s getting on in Africa is considered odd.
You see, the old girl is serving out her days in Uganda, having spent years travelling the world with me. We were inseparable until her accident last year. She slipped off a security conveyor belt at Singapore airport and had to be sent for repair. By the time she got back I had bought a new one – heartless, I know, but . . .
Loathing the idea of her lying idle on a shelf, I contacted the people at Camara in Dublin, who promised to find a new life for her in the tropics. They wrested her from me with admirable sensitivity, laid her on a workbench and began to expunge her memory
banks right in front of me. It was upsetting, but I’d rather that than have her wake up in her new life in Africa with a distant memory of our time together. I wanted a clean break – no recall, no recriminations.
Once Camara had cleaned her up and repackaged her with educational software, she was sent on an eight-week sea voyage to Kenya, landing eventually in the sultry port of Mombasa – a chaotic, unprepossessing spot redeemed only by its vast coral-walled fort, which the Portuguese built to control the coastal Swahilis.
From there my lovely IBM ThinkPad was given a quick check-up and put through her paces by some Irish volunteers who were instructing local teachers in word processing, spreadsheets and PC maintenance.
Two months later she was sent overland across Kenya to Fort Portal, a lush agricultural town in southwest Uganda. Coincidentally, she and I happened to have spent a wonderful week there, trekking around the crater lakes and spotting chimpanzees, last year. It’s a pastoral landscape of tea plantations and papyrus swamps: an ideal retirement spot – not that she’ll be getting much rest.
She’s based in a local school now, working as part of a Moodle open-source e-learning network. Camara loaded her newly lobotomised mind with the entire contents of Wikipedia offline, so that the children (and, at night, adult learners) have access to a vast store of the world’s knowledge.
I must admit I’m proud of her. The school will be monitored and evaluated to make sure she’s okay, and she’ll be enrolled in something called the Most Significant Change programme, which asks users how they’ve benefited from her.
Previous computers have elicited responses such as: “I’ve learned things in detail, for instance things that I can’t see with my naked eye.” Others have commented about how the PC contains more images than they have ever seen, because of never having access to books.
Camara accepts all types of computer equipment and offers a collection service for businesses. (It deletes the memory using military-standard data destruction.) It is currently seeking volunteers for a trip to train teachers on PC maintenance and the use of educational packages in a part of Uganda between Rwenzori National Park, Queen Elizabeth National Park and Bwindi Impenetrable Forest. If you get there and happen to see a particularly alluring ThinkPad, tell her I was asking for her.
- camara.ie.
- manchan@ireland.com