I chose to ignore the call for “staff” to appear at 6:30am to begin set-up and from now on considered myself only a “guest” at this event. Even though in my way I’ve been doing everything I could to help since arriving here.
By 7:15 am I left the hotel and sauntered down the main street toward the taxi stand some distance away. The sun was struggling with the clouds, and barely winning. A few shopkeepers were beginning to raise their corrugated roll-up doors, but there was not much activity on the street yet. The few beggars were in their accustomed spots with cheerful faces and “good morning sir, how are you?” A couple of food shops and stands were opening. I reached the square and there was one three-wheeler taxi still there. What I thought was really cool was that every taxi driver without exception had a mouthful of toothpaste that he was scrubbing with a toothbrush and spitting out onto the street – simultaneously as if the urge had hit all of them at the same time. More than any other reaction I would just say that this amused me to no end – I almost broke out laughing – or perhaps I though it was a scene from a 1950’s musical where they were all about to break into song and dance!
I arrived at Upper TCV around 7:45 which I thought was far enough in advance of the 8:00am opening time for registration and was surprised to find almost nobody there. Three of us, to be exact. Sitting like lumps on the stone wall.
But, ten minutes later we discovered that registration was indeed taking place over in front of the auditorium and we quickly accomplished a change-of-venue, joining the rest of the group.
The 8:00am arrivals were at TCV because they were on “Tour number one” which was the “antenna-spotting trek.” It was a last-minute decision on my part because I didn’t know initially whether I would want to go there, having seen some of this same territory last year, but upon further thought it looked like it might be a good opportunity to meet some of the participants before the actual summit began (well, it begins tomorrow as I write this) and so I signed up a couple of weeks ago. And it was a good opportunity. My friend, Joy Tang (OneVillage Foundation), was there registering, as were a few tardy arrivals from late yesterday. (Here’s a puzzle for you to work out – her hands signal what she thinks of AirJaldi – what does it mean?) Because there was wi-fi available both inside and outside the auditorium, many of us were sneaking a few minutes of connected time to pick up mail, and I was entering my blog entries from the previous day’s notes, which I had created off-line.
Incidentally, the way I do my blog entries here is to create a full page entry in DreamWeaver with photos dropped in, and all of the formatting and links that I want, which lets me preview the look, and then when I can go online I scrape the text off the page and paste it into WordPress, and upload and then “position” each of the photos I’m going to use. These days there are even easier ways of creating blog pages offline and posting them , which I should use and then post my reactions and experience, shouldn’t I?
There’s a lot of on-the-spot journalism going on – I will make it Monday’s task to try to locate as many of these sources as possible so you can follow them too. Ryan Hodson and Jay Dedman of Node 101 were shooting a video interview of Yahel Ben-David, AirJaldi’s progenitor. Since Ryan was behind the camera most of the time, you’re not going to see her face just yet. And I’m sure you will see it soon. Mr. Yahel Ben-David will be on the platform tomorrow and we will catch him then on “film.”
During our trek on Sunday (see separate entry on the “trek” and his photo to the left) Aurelien Personnaz, from France, who came to intern and stayed to help TibTec, and who is an experienced wireless networking router configurator, trekked with us and explained the fine points of the mesh routers hanging way up high on towers, and on top of Hindu temples.
Resources:Be sure to check Wireless Networks in the Developing WorldBe sure to check the AirJaldi Summit web siteAnd the AirJaldi video stream online
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