Hello all,
Today, Thursday, November 13, was my 4th day in Malawi. Months ago, when I was preparing for this placement, I made a promise to myself and others that I would not neglect recording and sharing my experiences with the people in my life. I have unfortunately had to break that promise, but the fault is not really my own. Let me explain.
I had been working on a post about an extremely interesting experience I had during my training in Toronto involving talking to people around the city about certain aspects of the Canadian financial system. The goal was to get some practice and understand some challenges surrounding the solicitation of information from people conducting their everyday lives. Learning how to ask the right questions, get multiple perspectives to form hypothesis, and plenty of other skills were the main themes of that excercise.
I was getting quite near finishing that post and working on several others, all of which were meant to be shared in the near future, when a strange thing happened. I was been checking my email in my tent here at the Mabuya Camp, where we are temporarily staying in Lilongwe, when my computer totally froze up on me. I turned it off, and when I tried to restart it did not cooperate. Alarmed, I took a look a closer look at the machine to see if anything was up, and sure enough, there were hundreds of ants crawling inside it. They were everywhere: going into and out of the USB port, into the ethernet port, all over the printer port. Everywhere. Hundreds of them. I took the machine apart to take a look at the motherboard, and, yes, an army of ants had set up shop.
So, while I can't be totally certain, I am pretty sure the ants destroyed my computer. This is why I haven't been able to post much recently and why there hasn't been any email from me. The internet here, where available, is slow and expensive if you don't have your own laptop, so there you have it. I will try to be in contact as much as possible in the coming weeks, but I can't make any promises. If you'd like to give me a call, please feel free anytime:
My phone number here: 011 265 9034067
Bye!
¬Mike
Thursday, November 13, 2008
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6 comments:
Oh my god, Mike! That is awful - but kinda funny at the same time. When I read it, the only thing that came to mind was "SERIOUSLY!?"
I'm going to forward this blog to some friends and classmates - I've been talking quite a bit about you recently.
Don't die!
Alex
You have GOT to be kidding! Well, I guess it could have been worse - they could have been in your pants. Looking on the bright side, atleast you'll have some really remarkable stories to tell, and you should get quite a bit of mileage out this one... Be safe.
I just googled "ants in computers" and apparently in Texas they're having a real problem with something called "crazy ants". Even NASA has had to call in the pesticide people to erradicate some colonies at the Houston Space Centre. Has your laptop ever been to Texas?! hmmmm... Good luck!
Thanks for the update Mike, I can't believe the ants. I just read the post out loud to my family, they may be hooked now! I am looking forward to more stories!
Okay, this sounds like to LTOV equivalent to 'the dog ate my homework'... but, I guess I can believe you this once. =)
Hope you're enjoying yourself so far, and I'm looking forward to more stories.
Hey Mike!
It is so nice to hear your stories. I hope another post comes soon. Miss you!
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