One Day Left

Today, October 15th, is the first internet deadline for the professors in the program. True to the original intentions, the teachers were told that Pwof Ansanm would pay for one hour of educational internet use a month at VDH (a youth center with a cybercafe and internet classes) if they would send an email once a month to pwofansanm@gmail.com to say which sites they were using most. This was almost two months ago, but the internet at VDH was down for nearly one month, so the deadline for the first email was pushed back.

As of a week or two ago, we had only heard from a handful out of the 55 professors who finished the training (all of whom said they wanted to participate in the internet program). As of last night, there were 20 who had written, plus two members of KAG (the teachers organization)- Waldinde, who has been helping teach the others, and another who helped run the training. I'm not sure what the policy will be about KAG members.

This has been another demonstration in the workings about Haiti. Really, just two weeks ago, we were sure that we would have ten responses at the most. Plus, there was no way for us to communicate with all the teachers to remind them. What were we going to do? Send them an email? In any case, faithful Waldinde has been contacting as many as possible, reminding them, and even offering to meet them there to help them remember how to write an email. Things get done in Haiti, usually, but only at the last minute.

I asked him about the women because we've only heard from the KAG member and Marie Mite, who was in the training, but we've technically counted her as a trainer, since she helped train the teachers in internet and computer use. Waldinde said he visited all the women personally, but they chose not to go. I'm really hoping that they're just procrastinating and will go in the next 12 hours... I wonder why they're not interested?

I wish I knew how many of the teachers actually received the information about this opportunity. Most things go out by word of mouth, so we're limited to their seeing each other and remembering or to Waldinde's efforts. I have no doubt that we've missed some of the teachers in the more remote towns.

At the same time, when I really think about it, 20 out of 55 may not be so bad. It could easily have been much lower.