… must come to an end. Today is my last day in Dominica. We’ve had a strange week waiting for a container to clear customs, it still hasn’t come through. We’ve been up and down to Roseau to see if we can help and we’ve done some little jobs for some of the schools we visited last year.

Now, I’m ready to pack my bag and head for Antigua later today. Hopefully, we’ll be visiting Spanny’s on the way to the airport so I can get some more nice photographs.

Hopefully, I’ll be back in Dominica soon

TTFN

A nice relaxing weekend in one of the most relaxing (if not THE most relaxing) places on the planet. Following the drinkies on Friday night, I had a bit of a lie-in on Saturday morning. Thankfully, when I went for breakfast, bacon and eggs were on the go along with some fresh coffee. I just had a chilling day at Rosalie Forest and tidied up a few small issues with computers.

The previous evening, I had been invited to jam with Xavier and his band and he called round on Saturday to make sure I had remembered and also to let us know that he was cooking up some saltfish and bananas for us. Jem dropped Michelle and I off in Grand Fond and we had a couple of drinks before going to Xavier’s house for food. He had done a marvellous job and the meal was lovely. Once we had finished, we headed down to the band room (next to the bar) and were joined by the rest of the band. Now, I love to jam and I especially like to play something a little different. Having not played a great deal of reggae style before, I rather enjoyed myself – so much that it wasn’t until around 11 o’clock that I realised I needed to call Jem to see if he could pick us up. What a night! Thanks to all the band members and especially to Xavier for his extended hospitality.

Another little lie-in for me on Sunday and I completely missed breakfast. Never mind, that was made up for by the terrific spaghetti bolognese we had for lunch. After that, Jem took us to see some sights around the island. We picked up Jem’s better-half, Jackie (sorry if the spelling is wrong) in Canefield and went up to Trafalgar Falls. On the way, we drove through an area of the island which has hot sulphur pools – we could smell the sulphur on the drive up. Jem stopped and showed is this little boiling pool, a very strange sight.

Once at Trafalgar Falls, we had a little refreshment and bought passes to go up to the falls themselves. What a magnificent sight. There are two large waterfalls and some hot pools there. Jem and I tried to climb up to the base of the larger waterfall but were thwarted as Hurricane Dean last year had moved some of the rocks so the climb was very tough. Here’s a shot of the other waterfall as well

Once we had climbed back up, we jumped back in the car to head back – stopping off at Ti Kwen for a drink (they also have volcanic hot baths there). Ti Kwen did not completely quench our thirst so we headed to The Cove (where I had been for ‘Thirsty Thursday’ previously) for another couple of drinks. The sun was setting over the Caribbean Sea and there was also a band playing. Most relaxing.

We returned to Rosalie Forest for dinner, which was marvellous as usual, and I’m now having one last Kubuli before bed. Another long day awaits tomorrow.

I have a busy time ahead in my last week in Dominica but I will try to update as much as possible – hopefully with some more beautiful scenery for you to look at.

TTFN

Wednesday of this week gave me a little bit of a break from installation. Tim didn’t need me to go on site with the team so myself and Kemon spent some time repairing PC’s at Rosalie Forest. We set ourselves up a nice workshop and managed to get through quite a few machines. We also had some machines from Grand Fond to bring back to life but sadly we could only repair one of these as they were in a quite a bad state of repair

Once we had finished our repairs, we delivered a PC to the Health Centre in La Plaine which we hope will assist them with their administration tasks. While we were out, we did a little sight-seeing and took in some lovely views of the Atlantic side of the island and also a waterfall nearby.

On the whole, Wednesday was a nice, easy day. Thursday was to prove rather different though.

Thursday saw us at Dominica Grammar School in Roseau to install around 15 workstations and cabling. Tim and his team set about cabling while Kemon and I looked at the machines. We had a lot of trouble with this batch of machines as well as issues with the electricity supply in the school. The power proved to be rather inconsistent when we used the 230V supply (it blew 4 power supplies in the PC’s) so we moved over to the 110V supply which proved to be a lot better. Quite a few of the machines here had been tinkered with by the school technician and I’m afraid to say he had made a little bit of a mess. Much ‘Yorkshire Working-Class Latin’ ensued and for the first time during my stay here, I got a little vexed. We eventually got them finished and headed for home. Needless to say, after a stressful day, I had my ‘beer-head’ on and sank a few Kubuli in the evening.

Friday was my last official day on the schools project and we went to install some machines in the Adult Education Centre. The cabling team were in fine form and had all the points done for us by lunchtime (even though one of the guys had had a few too many the night before and was a little green around the gills. Ady would not have been amused). Kemon and I weren’t hanging about either and we had all the PC’s tested and running with a copy of OpenOffice.org installed.

With all work finished, the cabling team headed off and we went for lunch with Nico who had brought us down to town. We were joined by Jem for lunch and once we had been heartily refreshed, we headed to Orion Academy which is a small public school on the way out of town. We managed to get 7 PC’s up and running for them and we also took away some of the machines from last year which had developed faults (I’ll be back in the workshop later to repair those). Then it was back ‘home’ for a while before we went out for a Friday night in Grand Fond. Needless to say, with it being Friday night, I had a few beers as I would normally do at home. The locals were most welcoming and we even managed to get a game of dominoes going

Hopefully, we’ll get out and about some more this weekend and I’ll have a few more photo’s to share with you

TTFN

On Tuesday, after my morning ablutions, I joined Jem for breakfast nice and early. Rather nice jam/marmalade was on offer which was made from lime and Scotch Bonnet peppers, it had quite a nice kick to thoroughly bring me around . After a little while, the Funky Bus from the Ministry arrived with the crew and it was time for work once again.

Now, last year I said that our driver (Ogis I think his name was – lovely chap) had a tendency towards the Michael Schumacher style of driving. Well, this year we have a different driver (Ogis has apparently had an accident so is off sick for the moment) and he is a little more like Lewis Hamilton – pretty quick but nowhere near as refined as the master. The tyres were squealing round the corners as we made our way through Carib Territory and past Melville Hall Airport to Wesley Primary School in the North East of the island.

The weather gods must have read yesterday’s post about the rain and sent us some scorchingly hot sunshine for most of the day. I’m not sure which I prefer now. A little cooler tomorrow if you’re reading this please

Once at Wesley, we unpacked the Funky Bus and proceeded with our usual style to install a suite of 10 computers in the school. While waiting for the cabling team to catch up a little, I decided to go for a little wander around and have a quick puff on a ‘cancer stick’ (terrible habit I know, I must give them up). Whilst out, an old gentleman hailed me from his garden and asked me where in the world I was from. I told him I was from the UK and he asked which part. After a little conversation, he told me he had lived in/near Nottingham for many years and was about to return for a visit to see his relatives. He then went on to explain that the name ‘Wesley’ was from John Wesley and that Wesleyan preachers had visited the island to convert the locals to the Methodist faith. This is an example of one of the great things about Dominica, the local people are so friendly and welcoming, it’s truly marvellous. Oh, but I won’t tell you what he said about Americans though

Back on track, I returned to finish off the installation and have yet another lovely lunch (thanks guys!). We got finished in quick time and before heading back, I took a few shots of the school and its surroundings. Being in the North East (close to North East Secondary school from last year), we were on the Atlantic side of the island. The school yard has magnificent views of both the ocean and the island mountains.

Tim wanted to call in at a school in Marigot which had been given a few machines from this shipment also, so we popped in there to make sure they were all fully functional. After our brief visit, we made our way back in the now familiar fashion to Rosalie Forest where the rest of the team disembarked for a swift Kubuli with Jem and myself.

Once again, we are having ‘Movie Night’ here. Thankfully, I brought a stash of good films with me which should last a while

Got my ‘beer head’ on tonight so pardon the spelling and grammatical errors

Back soon with more updates

TTFN

Hello again,

Sorry for the delay in writing up my posts – things have been a little hectic over here. Now though, I am relaxing after another rather warm days work with a nicely chilled bottle of Kubuli (Scott will hate me for that no doubt).

After Scott and Lisa had left on Saturday morning, I decided to tackle all the little computer related jobs around Rosalie Forest Eco-Lodge and settled down with several notebooks to do a spot of maintenance (you know, the kind you usually ask me to do in the pub which end up taking me a couple of hours) . After a little while, Scott called to tell us that the plane due to take them from Dominica to Antigua had broken down so they might miss their flight from Antigua back to the UK (and he sounded absolutely gutted too). We did what we could from our end, phoning around the airlines, checking in on-line etc., and I’m glad to say they managed to get back safe and sound (although their luggage is apparently still in Antigua).

Once the panic was over, we went back to our Saturday afternoon and managed to get everytthing stowed away ready for the evening.

We had a meal up in the forest on Saturday evening, due to it being Richard’s birthday (he is a volunteer at Rosalie Forest, hailing from French shores originally). Richard insisted on cooking us all a lovely meal which was greatly appreciated along with much wine and other assorted beverages. Joyeux Anniversaire Richard! The geek in me also noted that it was the anniversary of Yuri Gagarin’s first manned space flight but no-one else seemed to appreciate that one

On Sunday, Jem had planned to take me to see some sights around the island. However, this plan was hindered by 1. The fact there was a party of school children coming to Rosalie Forest for the afternoon for some activities and 2. The fact that it absolutely bucketed it down for most of the day. However, the other Richard who works at Rosalie Forest took myself and another volunteer, Michelle (another Brit, from Plymouth) out for the afternoon for a bit of a tour.

First, we stopped off at “Spanny’s” to go and see some lovely waterfalls. Well, I say see. We saw some pictures of them in Spanny’s shop as it was too wet to go up to the waterfalls. Thankfully, Spanny sold us some Kubuli to keep our spirits up

Next, Richard drove us up to ‘Horseback Ridge’ which provides some magnificent views over the island. Despite the rain, we could still see out over the Atlantic and over the island itself.

Next, we had to stop off for me to look at a computer which had been donated to a local youth group (no rest for the wicked eh?). Thankfully, it only took me a few minutes to sort it out and we were on our way. As it was really throwing some rain down, we decided to head for home and go to see the sights another day.

When we got back, we saw a different kind of a sight though. The bus which had brought the children up to Rosalie Forest was blocking the road just before the bridge over the river. We thought this was odd so we got out to investigate (wondering whether they had broken down). Alas, it was a different matter. The rain had swollen the river so much that it was flowing over the top of the bridge so no-one could risk going over it. The bus driver had moved the bus before it got too bad but the river had risen so rapidly that the children (and everyone else) were stranded on the other side (not a bad place to be, I might add).

We had to wait for the river to subside and then crossed back over to dry out a litle. Thankfully, the children had all taken the ordeal in good spirit and were laughing in the rain as they ran back to their bus.

We decided to have a little entertainment in the evening so Jem and I hooked up his projector to his notebook to watch a film. Jem, Michelle, and I were highly amused to be watching a feature film in a rain forest with the chirping of crickets as background noise.

 Monday meant back to work for me. The gang from the ministry arrived in the bus to collect me and my new assistant, Kemon, and we set off for Grand Fond Primary School which is in a village near to Rosalie Forest. We had 16 computers plus all the necessary cabling and switches to install so we got stuck in and turned it all around in our now familiar style. I must say a big thanks to the staff at Grand Fond Primary for the lovely snacks and superb lunch which they laid on for us.

Once again, I am now back at Rosalie Forest. We just had a lovely meal cooked for us by Michelle and watched another film to help us wind down after another hard day. I’ll try and get some more pictures for you all again through the rest of the week – hopefully it will stop raining.

Bye for now

Thursday and Friday saw us doing 2 primary schools in Roseau. First off was St Marys Primary School which is just around the corner from the ministry office. We had 30 computers to install there but once again, we were bereft of power in the room. Lugay and his team set about installing the cabling for the room while I checked out the PC’s (I had given Scott the day off as I knew that without power, there wouldn’t be a lot he could do so he and Lisa hired a car and went for a tour).

We battled on through the day and got all the network points installed and all the PC’s fully tested. Tim and Lugay then took me on a night out – ‘Thirsty Thursday’. It was an excellent evening with 2 live bands playing late into the night, most enjoyable after a hard day’s work.

On Friday, we were installing at Convent Prep which is quite close to St Marys from the previous day. Scott, Tim and I had to also attend a press conference that morning at St Martins. The press conference went well, with Scott giving a speech about the project and how things work from the UK side of the operation.

Once we got back to the school, we got cracking with the PC’s and managed to catch up with Lugay and his cabling gang. Convent Prep now has 30 PC’s for the children to use

Once we had finished, we decided to go for a drink at ‘Top Shottaz’, our favourite bar in Roseau (Ady will remember it well from last year). After some refreshing Kubuli, Jem from Rosalie Forest took us back to Tina’s where we packed our bags, said our farewells and headed back to Rosalie Forest Eco-Lodge for a meal and a few more drinks (Hmm, seems to be a theme occuring here). As it was Scott and Lisa’s last evening in Dominica, we had quite a few drinks and then headed to bed.

This morning, we bade farewell to Scott and Lisa as they headed to Melville Hall Airport to begin the long trek back to the UK (and it’s lovely weather). I am staying on for a couple more weeks to do more installations and maybe see a few more of the wonderful sights Dominica has to offer.

Check back soon for more updates

TTFN

Today, we went back to Grand Bay to do our second school there – Grand Bay Primary School. It’s quite a large primary school and we had been given 30 computers to install, plus all the cabling and switching.

Our usual bus driver had to take the day off today so we went in a different bus from the Ministry. We managed to squeeze all the kit and ourselves in and set off for a hard day of installation.

Once we arrived, the bus was unloaded and we began the next leg of the project. The school have had some new desks fitted with columns dropping down from the ceiling so the gang decided to run the cables down the inside of the columns and along the ceiling back to the switches – not the easiest of cabling runs.

Another drawback was that the electrical points have not yet been installed in the room so Scott and I would have to test the computers one by one from an extension lead running from the rather affectionately termed ‘Socket of Death!’

We cracked on and despite a few little problems, we got the room cabled and put the computers in place ready for the electrical work to be done.

Then it was back in the bus for a quick drive back to HQ through the scenery of southern Dominica.

Another installation of 30 computers tomorrow, see you again soon

The computers and peripherals had been reconditioned by the team back at NS Optimum in Leamington Spa and shipped out to Dominica by Geest a couple of weeks before Scott Fisher (Network Manager of Bromsgrove School), his wonderful wife Lisa, and myself (Mark Allan of NS Optimum) flew out to Dominica for installation.

Note – click the links below to open pictures in a new window

Saturday 5th April 2008

After a long journey from Gatwick via Antigua (including some comedy ‘Englishness from myself), we arrived at Melville Hall Airport in Dominica to be met by the friendly face of Jem Winston from Rosalie Forest Eco-Lodge. Jem drove us back to Rosalie Forest where we stayed for the weekend. Due to the time difference of 5 hours between Dominica and the UK, we all felt a little tired so had an early night to try and get into the swing of things.

Sunday 6th April 2008

Just a day of chilling out today. We had a walk around the forest before we went to see the ‘Emerald Pool’ which is a fantastic waterfall dropping into (amazingly enough) a deep emerald coloured pool. On the way back from there, we saw this lovely view. After this is was back to Rosalie Forest for a superb evening meal and a few bottles of Kubuli.

 Monday 7th April 2008

Our first installation at St Martins Secondary School in Roseau today. Jem dropped us and our luggage off at Tina Alexander’s house where we will be staying for the rest of the week. Then we went to meet Tim and the rest of the team at the Ministry for Education and Youth Affairs to load up the bus with kit to be installed at the school. We were soon back into the same routine as last year and got the 16 PC’s installed and networked quite easily. After dropping the kit back at the ministry, Scott, Lisa, Tim, Lugay, and I went for a drink or two and caught up on what had gone on in the year since we had last been to Dominica.

Tuesday 8th April 2008

After a good nights rest, we headed off to do our second installation of the week. This was at Pierre Charles School in Grand Bay. Grand Bay is in the southern part of the island, unknown territory for us. After a slightly eventful drive down (anyone ever see a spirit level fly out of the side window of a bus?), we arrived and unloaded as usual. The lads were soon busy putting the cabling in for the PC’s while Scott and I checked out the 20 PC’s to make sure they had survived their 4000 mile trek. Here’s a before and after shot of the computer lab at the school.

Once we were done, it was back in the bus (with spirit level secured) and home to Tina’s for another lovely meal and some rest. In fact, that’s what I’m going to go and do right now. Another day of installation beckons with 30 PC’s this time.

TTFN

Arrived in Dominica last night and we’re having a lazy day seeing a few sights.

Will post up some of todays happenings later.

TTFN