Tuesday, August 5
Location: Cuzco, Peru
Today's weather: 18░C, Cloudy
Today was very boring. I spent almost all of it in
front of a computer, answering the forty audioconference
questions that I had downloaded from the Internet. There
were now going to be two audioconferences each Wednesday
because many of the schools had difficulties getting
connections last week when there was only one
audioconference. I was glad that this would let more
schools hear me and talk with me – so didn't really
mind the extra work it created.
Sitting in my hostel room typing at a computer isn't
very exciting – but fortunately I have a laptop
computer (because its easy to carry with me), so I'm able
to type up my notes while sitting in cafes and other
places. Well, at least until my batteries run out –
after this I have to return to my room and a nearby power
point.
Answering the questions is kind of fun. I know most of
the answers, but sometimes I have to ask the advice of
local people to find out information such as the ages
that Peruvian children start school (they start school at
age 6). Sometimes the questions involve a little bit of
research, and I'm very thankful that I remembered to
bring along my Encarta 97 and TVNZ New
Zealand Encyclopaedia CD-ROMs. I think that it is so
wonderful that nowadays its possible to fit so much
information onto small disks. Its certainly much easier
than having to trek around the Amazon carrying a huge
pile of books. While I was in Porto Alegre, a few weeks
ago, I also managed to pick up another useful
(locally-produced) CD-ROM called Amaz⌠nia which
has lots of useful information about animals, the
environment, and Indians.
The call for the first audioconference came through at
5:50pm local time (10:50am the next day, NZ time). I had
made arrangements with the hostel the previous day so
that I could use the phone for the audioconferences
– but I made the arrangements in Spanish (which I'm
not very good at) so I wasn't sure if they understood
that the two calls would last 40 minutes each. About 10
minutes into the call, the hotel receptionist started
looking very anxious – he was going through the
phonebook and saying that he had to make two very short
calls. I tried saying that the calls were really
important and that I was connected to lots of schools in
New Zealand. I couldn't hang up. Eventually, the
receptionist went off to make the calls from somewhere
else. The rest of the call went fine, but there was some
background noise behind me as well as from other schools
on the line – so I found it a little distracting at
times. I hope it didn't show too much.
There was a twenty minute break between the first and
second call, so I popped across the road to a small
market, where I brought some chocolates to say thanks to
the receptionist and sorry for the inconvenience that I
caused. I also had a Letter of Introduction from the
Peruvian Ambassador in New Zealand – it was written
in Spanish and explained what I was doing, so I showed it
to the receptionist hoping that the letter would explain
things better than my poor Spanish.
The second audioconference call came at 6:50pm local
time. It was a little better than the first, though I
still found myself a little distracted. Some of the
speaking schools weren't connected, so Danielle had to go
through some of the second set of questions. There were
obviously a few technical issues to be worked out, but
perhaps things are improving. Hopefully, with a bit more
practice and when Telecom AudioConferencing get better at
connecting in such a large number of schools, then things
will be better still.
After the audioconferences, I went back to local the
Internet office to clear and respond to my email, then
went off to get some dinner.
   
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