One Geek

I think I managed to do some good work whilst here. I set myself the goal of providing at least $100,000 of value during my time volunteering. Except I forgot to work out how I was going to calculate that. Ops..

Anyway here is a somewhat incomplete list of the work tasks I completed:
Specify the computer systems required for a 200 bed hospital.
Setup a loadbalanced, redundant set of servers to deliver a custom application (Turbocare) using a MySQL backend.
Designed a network
Documented howto setup 90% of the hospitals systems
Misc work on Turbocare including testing and some coding.
Train and mentor two computer systems administrators. One in Delhi and one in Dimapur. (They should be meeting up in a few months, along with the guy I trained in Raxaul. I wonder if they’ll talk about how crazy I was. )
Setup online courseware for two programs (No content in them yet)
Setup an online LDAP Address Book (Not quite finished)
Setup backend for three websites (None of them have much content as of today, but I am promised it will come).
Created some mailing lists (Strangely these are actually used)
Gave a short session in a HMS workshop. (It was title Basic Health Care for Hospital Computers)
Provided evaluation of three Hospital Management Systems. (Mostly informal)
Meet with far too many vendors (I may be a bit of a people person, but I am not really that much into sales people. Particular the ones who call at 10pm on a Friday night.)
Developed a healthy coffee addiction
Researched mobile phone jammers (It’s too hard to get people to switch off phones in meetings)
Evaluated video conferencing solutions(not much though, cause I didn’t like the idea at the time)
Setup far too many wireless networks (But on the plus side, it is a good way to make friends)
Worked on credit card donations options ( Somehow it all ended up going nowhere)
Evaluated a variety of Content Management Systems (Oh so boring)
Evaluated Wireless long distance VPN system (Evaluation is such a nice word isn’t it)
Created specification for PBX system, evaluated some PBX’s and meet with a vendor.
Became official present shopper for colleagues in Dimapur. (Would be fun in a place like Delhi, just hard work in Dimapur)
Helping Damsel’s in distress with IT issues.

I am sure I am missing some tasks I preformed but I think that will do for now. No wonder I’ve been feeling tired. I am pretty amazed I managed to actually develop some friendships in my time here. Although sadly that last work task of helping damsel’s in distress is actually one of the ways I made friends here.

I think I need a new life but for now I’ll settle for leaving India and going on a holiday.

I have found the well known follow an Indian trick incredibly helpful over the past week.
However now I have a new tip from my observations and experiments on Delhi roads.
Try and cross using a bus, in front of a bus you can usually find a two lane gap big enough to get you well and truly on your way. Once you have crossed those lanes don’t freak out, standing in the middle of a lane is a natural place to stand. Just keep an eye on the traffic and let it flow around you.

I spent most of today hanging out with Steve. We ended up going clothes shopping, hanging out in cafes, buying books, and minding children.

It was all good fun.
We ended up having dosa for dinner, which makes Steve a life long member of Dosa club.

I’m all packed up and getting ready to go to move to Dimapur.

We said goodbye to Muni, who was our cleaner. It’s funny how much of a part of life in Delhi she has been, especially given that she only came two days a week for a few hours. I think we are going to miss her. She was really sad today saying goodbye. I think she cheered up a bit when she started to look for stuff of ours that she could take as a parting gift. I’m feeling a bit sad leaving Delhi and our home here.

Tomorrow though it’s off to new adventures in Nagaland which should be fun, or at least more life experience.

Now that I am running on a Mac I feel much more creative so I’ve uploaded some of my Diwalli pictures. You can look at them.

There has been a big outbreak of Dengue Fever in Delhi over the past month or so. It’s a pretty big deal, so much so that they have drained all the ponds and fountains in Delhi. Yesterday night I became worried that I may have got it. You see on Tuesday Night I had a big headache, then yesterday I had a big backache and a bit of a fever. All symptoms of Dengue Fever and I was getting myself all worried about it. I hate when I know the symptoms of something and I am trying to work out if I am really experiencing them. Anyway I decided I should go and pick up my Macbook whilst I still had the strength. It required me to go to the bank and then the “store” which was actually some guys apartment. So I did that, then when I finally went to bed after playing with my new toy. It took ages to get to sleep and I prayed a bit and hoped that I would wake up feeling better and I did so yay for that. I’m still a little sick, but I am quite sure I don’t have it now and I am much better. Praise the Lord!

Last night Wes and I went out to a Korean restaurant with a guy from church. It was a hidden unmarked place that you would never find if you didn’t know it existed. Once inside I could no longer tell I was India. It was totally Korean, they even had waiter call bells. They served us a feast, almost a dozen side dishes shared between the three of us in addition to our mains. My main was a Korean beef dish served in a box with rice and seaweed. It was very nice. We also had some good conversation and it was a really fun night out.

Last night was Diwalli, and it went off! Last night walking around Delhi with Wes, Kate, and Sara(two people from Wes’ organisation) it felt like we were in a war zone. There were explosions every few seconds, such fun. Looking into the sky one could see fireworks in every direction. We went for a walk around our neighbourhood and we made some friends at a little neighbourhood park. We were given sweets by them and watched the families children let off fireworks for a while. After that we headed back home, dodging some of the more violent fireworks. It was a bit insane as there were cars still driving down when projectile fireworks were being sent across the road. On the way we passed a fireworks stand on the way back and I decided to buy some fireworks. When we got back home we lit them with some of the kids in our alleyway. It was good fun, and it was the most we have interacted with our neighbours. They also sent us some sweets when we went back to our apartment. The explosions continued into the wee hours of the morning here and there has been a small amount more today.

I’ll post some photos in my gallery some time this week.

I was chatting to Wes today and we are starting to get that feeling that things might just come together with the IT Systems for the Hospital. It’s interesting because we have gotten to the point where we can visualise what the complete system is going to look like. I tell you what it’s going to be pretty funky.

We are going to have so many layers of redundancy, thin clients, a huge 42RU rack, 4 1RU Servers, patch bays, a MySql Cluster and our own custom hospital database application that Wes has been slaving away on day and night. His application really shows the power of the modern web application, using barcode scanners, and printers all from within the webpage. We even have one person employed as an IT guy.

Unfortunately all this is about where we both would of liked to of been about 6-12 months ago.

There is still so much work to do.. *SIGH*

Watching Rap on Indian TV is quite amusing, as they bleep out every swear word so often most of the song is just a series of beeps. It really is quite funny.

Anyway so we went out to the Big Chill with Rob and Nicole and an African guy from church called Ike. Wes left to go back home to work and the rest of us went to go and see a movie. Now yesterday was a public holiday and there were four of us travelling, so we had a hard time getting a rickshaw. They all wanted extra ruppies for taking four people. Anyway we squezed in one and went to Saket where the cinema is, however when we got there we found out that the film was sold out. We went to a coffee shop for a little while. Which reminds me on Sunday we went to United Coffee House and had this special coffee that is served like it was made in a science lab. It was in a bulb shaped lab glasswear held by a clamp. So I think it was heated by a bunsen burner, whatever they did it was good coffee.

Anyway so after that they came back to my house and hung out for a while. They watched Lantana and then Rob and Ike left. After that Wesley’s laptop died* so we (Nicole Wes and myself) decided to go to the movies. We went and saw Devil Wears Prada which was good fun. After that we all went to bed, Nicole had to leave at 4.30am for the airport. So anyway Nicole and I got up at 4.25am and went down to where the taxi was meant to be waiting but it wasn’t there yet, we walked around for a while and it came a few minutes later. We’d booked a guy I knew to drive so as to make Nicole feel safer, I saw it was actually that guy and we said goodbye. I presume she got her flight ok this time as I have heard nothing from her. I considered going to the airport with her but felt that was just being over-protective and causing me to lose more sleep.

Which brings me to a question I have for the women out there. When do guys trying to make you safer become guys being over-protective, patronising or disempowering? How much safer does having a male escort make you feel?

* I found out today the power wasn’t plugged in properly on his laptop.

Over the weekend I have been hanging out a bit with Nicole from Belrose and Rob. It has been quite fun, on Saturday Night we watched a Bollywood DVD at my house and ate ice-cream. She also brought her Israeli friend who was nice. Then on Sunday I meet up with Nicole and Rob and had lunch, coffee and dinner. After dinner Rob and I said goodbye and wished Nicole the best for her time in Hong Kong. At 8am Rob who was staying the night at my house got a call on his mobile from Nicole, it appears India was not ready to let her go. Perhaps it was the Indian cultural influence on her from her time travelling here but whatever the reason she missed her flight by 24hours. However as today is a public holiday life is being a little more difficult for Nicole, as she can’t contact the airline. Apparantly she has changed one of her flights, but still has her connecting one to change. So now she is going to call Ethiopia.

Anyway it’s all good fun. Later today were going out to the Big Chill and then maybe a movie.

I am feeling rather passionate about Aid and Development again today. It’s been a while since I’ve kind of felt the level of passion that is just fun. Today I went to the launch of a voice mail and call back service called Soochna Se Samadhan designed to enable farmers to get advice on their crops through simply calling a number, leaving a message and then calling back the following day for the recorded answer. I found the presentations of which there were half a dozen a little lack luster, but I could get the passion for using Information and Communications Technology appropriately.

During the question time a women pointed out something that I had noticed, that in the pictures and all the slides they only showed men interacting with the project. She questioned the gender equality of the project, the two female leads of the project said they had noticed the mistake. It was fun because all the people involved were really passionate about the gender equality issue. It’s great that gender equality is accepted as something any development project requires. Another interesting thing about the project was the low tech nature of it from an end user point of view, they are even hiring locals to help farmers dial in.

A big issue with this project though is the cost to the farmer for this advice. They haven’t work out a model yet but it’s not going to be a free service. One of the partners is called TARAhaat who are basically a group all about making money in socially responsible ways.

Other thoughts to come out of the morning for me, was getting expert advice vs leveraging community based knowledge. Data vs Information vs Knowledge, which is too big a topic for this blog post. It was a good reminder to me of the human nature of development work and how it is OK to make mistakes. The ethics of having a posh launch for an NGO based project, the morning was at a convention centre place and a large buffet lunch was provided, as well as a conference gift. Which also raised the question for me of what is acceptable administration cost and what is waste. It was a good reminder that their are other people working on different problems in India and it also reminded me of why I like EHA and TEAR so much.

Work is gaining momentum finally as well which is good. I now have a vendor working at a pace I am happy with to sell me my servers for the hospital. Those who have talked to me lately may have heard how frustrated I was getting so it is a big relief.

Tonight I went out with Rob and Nicole both from St Stephen’s Belrose for dinner which was nice. I got in to two big passionate social justice rants, it had been too long a time since I have done a good just rant so I was happy. One was about the injustice both perpetrated and perpetuated by Australia, and the second was that India’s problems are not unsolvable and that the main real problems are silver bullet attitudes by government and some NGO’s, and a lack of transparency in many projects. It was such good fun.

Now I really should head off to bed as I have a meeting in the morning.