I decided to keep a brief journal on this trip and share it through these blog posts. Thanks for praying for me and the other IT Connect participants! I will make an effort to update my journal daily and new entries will appear at the top of the blog. When I get a chance to throw in a photo or two I will do that. Here are my journal notes from yesterday and today:
Sunday, 6 Apr:
2nd day of flying... On trips like this you sort of go into time warp. You lose track of what time it really is after going across many time zones and your body gets confused about when to sleep and when to be awake. Looking forward to getting to a bed to sleep! Only had a couple of hours of sleep on the plane in 30 minute segments, because I am a light sleeper. On Saturday while flying, I finished up most of the content for the course I will teach. Just a few final touches to make when I get Internet access, so it is good to have that out of the way!
Monday, 7 Apr:
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| Breakfast at the conference center. |
Arrived at the conference center around midnight last night. Got to bed around 1 am. Didn't have any internet access so could not let Krista know I got here safely. =( At breakfast now, it is great to see my African friends from all over again and see them greet each other too, as many have not seen each other for a year. Only part of the participants are here now, the rest will arrive today or tonight. We expect 28 people for this course, including 4 of us who are specifically trainers.
Later: I got Internet access so I was able to tell Krista I arrived safely. Very thankful for the +WhatsApp program which she and I use for international texting on our phones! She knows not to worry when she doesn't hear from me, because often if I arrive late at night there is no Internet until the next day. All if the African SIM cards I bought last year for my phones had expired so I couldn't even call her on the phone. It is getting more difficult to buy SIM cards here due to government restrictions because of scams, hacking, and illegal / terrorist activity.
+Kyle Edwards from Wycliffe USA just installed new wireless equipment here at the BTL CICC center, two weeks ago, so we seem to have good WiFi coverage now for the first time in the 5 years I have been coming here. That combined with the new firewall I helped set up when I was here last February means our internet access is now reasonable and usable! In Africa, reasonable Internet is sort of a variable thing. It means that most of the time I can get an email message and sometimes I can browse the web.
Even while I was posting this message, Google kept telling me it couldn't save it every now and then as I was typing. But that is typical for here, as the Internet service providers tend to be overloaded and generally not very stable, regardless of what type of Internet access you have, fiber, WiMax, T-1, 3G cellular, or some other type. Satellite Internet is usually pretty stable, but it is slow and extremely expensive, so we like to use faster and more economical options when available, but they tend to be sort of bumpy.
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