Orangpples

Friends are often surprised to see how often I tweet or how frequently I’ll email back home. And in ways I find it amazing how I can know what’s happening in almost real time all over the world from my room, not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of Peace Corps. But its a fact of the modern world that communication technology has permeated all aspects and all areas of life throughout the world. However, the internet I get here is most defininetly not the same internet I got back home in Virginia. Yes, technically it’s the same webpage that is served up – well almost there is quite a lot of redirection so www.google.com goes to www.google.co.za and www.amazon.com goes to www.amazon.co.uk and my facebook ads are about South Africa, other than that its all the same – but it’s still not the same internet because the bandwidth is limited both in quantity and quality (speed).

I connect to the internet by tethering my cell phone to my computer, something your not actually allowed to do with most phones back in the States because cell phone companies don’t want you sucking up copious amounts of data. However, here we don’t have unlimited data bundles like back home. I buy a set amount of data and when that is up I have to buy more, or if 2 months goes by and it’s not finished I lose it. Because the pre-paid model is so ubiquitous here it’s really easy to check your remaining balance and thus insure that you don’t unexpectedly run out.

Since every single byte that leaves or comes to my phone counts, I’m meticulous about where all my data goes and keep a close watch on the current usage throughout each session (ifconfig ppp0 | grep byte is by far the most used command on my terminal). There are many ways you can conserve data and I like to think I’ve got it down to an art. The first week I was here I switched over from IMAP to POP email, which means that all of my mail for the last 5 years can be viewed offline where I can read, replay, and compose before connecting my phone and sending email. When I browse not only is all flash off, but pictures as well – thus the internet I see is most definitely not the one you see, even if all the text is the same. With all my hacks to decrease my data usage I can normally get by on just 250MB in one month (that’s 1/3 of a CD) and when I splurge on data I use 500MB in a month. Back home I could go through 500MB in 30min. Below is a graph the data left on my bundle each day from March to June of last year.

As you can see, my day to day use of the internet barely uses any data. With that I can read my email 3 times a day, follow my top 10 favorite blogs, check twitter and facebook, and browse a few other random pages each day. Every now and then there’s some program I want, or someone sends me an email with pictures attached, or (and these are the worst) I get an email from someone pointing to a Youtube video. What I normally do is put the link in a list of things to maybe check online if at the end of the week I didn’t go over my data allotment.

Yes I could just buy 1 or 2 gigabytes of data each month, but then I’d spend all my hours watching Youtube videos and not actually getting out and experiencing the community. Plus to be fair about once every 3 months I get package from my Mom filled with about 4GB of podcasts that range from TWIT, FLOSS and a few others from Leo’s network to NPR’s Speaking of Faith and This American Life all of which make hand washing laundry, 4 hour taxi rides, and long walks much much better. You might think it’s crazy for my Mom to send me podcasts all the way across the ocean when I can download them right from my room. But I did the calculation (see tables below for Vodacom data prices): for me to download 6GB of data it would cost just over half of what I make in a month R 1200 or $160, the average price of a package from Virginia to South Africa containing a few magazines, DVD’s of podcasts, a letter or two and a few other surprises is less than $15, plus the knowledge that my parents put the package together is priceless.

Vodacom Data Bundle Prices

Obviously it pays to buy the larger bundles, and if they can really give me data for R0.20 a megabyte I don’t know how they get away with R2 a megabyte for no bundle. And I know plenty of people who don’t buy bundles, I’ve tried to explain this chart to them but spending R88 at one time sounds more expensive then spending R150 in R2 intervals. Part of the problem is that many people I work with have know concept of what a megabyte is and how much data it represents.

The best metaphor for explaining megabytes is to compare them liters. Just like water takes up space, so to do all the pictures, text, and videos you download or have saved on your computer. A 4MB of data will be twice as much information as 2MB just like 4L of coke is twice as much as 2L. Still a little abstract but at least it gets the concept of data taking up space across.

I’d be interested to know how these prices compare to data costs back home. I never actually used internet on my phone when I was in the States (Peace Corps opens up your world in so many ways!) so I have no idea if pay by the byte/megabyte plans are comparable to these. If I’m not mistaken the iPhone unlimited plan is around $60 which would get you 2GB on this plan. It’s going to be interesting going back home because I’m definitely used to having internet on my phone, but really like the prepaid model since I can control how much I spend – in 2MB chunks if I so please.

The total entropy of any isolated thermodynamic system tends to increase over time, approaching a maximum value.

This is a rather depression fundamental truth when extended to its final most absolute conclusion. But for at least the next 6 Billion years or so we don’t have to worry about that fact and therefor actually have much more pressing issues to worry about. But today I wanted to talk about the little localized anomalies to this generalized law otherwise known as human children and how they contribute to a massive increase in entropy through an amazing expenditure of energy.

One definition of entropy is a measure of the disorder and chaos of a system. Energy must be exerted in order for a system to obtain and maintain uniformity and order. Classic examples are a perfectly ordered deck of cards or an ice cube. The chances a shuffled deck of cards that is thrown on the floor and then randomly picked up being in perfect order is much closer to the chance that all the water molecules in my glass will suddenly arranging into the exact formation of ice at room temperature than the chance I’ll get a royal flush. In order to get that perfectly ordered deck or ice cube at room temperature energy must be used because those states are not naturally spontaneous. This means that the deck of cards and ice cube have lower entropy than the puddle of water and shuffled deck.

So what does this have to do with kids. First they are an example of a very low entropy system. What are the chances that the same amount of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorous, trace metals and other elements that make up a 3 year old randomly combine in just that way to make that unique and precious human being. So astronomically small that if you measure the economic value of all the complex proteins, intricately made cells, and everything else your DNA codes for and produces you could be worth $47 million, on the other hand if you just count just the basic elements and not the amazing way your body has arranged and uses them then your worth about $5. Second kids, and sometimes humanity as a whole though the final jury is still out on that one, tend to expend large amounts of energy not to create order but to create disorder and wreck havoc.

Now for the example from this weekend that provoked this whole train of thought. From somewhere a few of the kids on my street had scavenged the pieces to make a small push go-cart (I hear you saying Trevor, that’s a perfect example of human ingenuity being used to decrease entropy – please bare with me). The main core of the cart was an old discarded push lawnmower. The back axle on this lawnmower had worn through the plastic body and was falling out. I helped the kids fix it by basically sewing the axle in place with metal wire and pushed the kids around for a while. I took several pictures of the fixed axle and the kids playing with the cart.

The next day when I got back from work I found the cart completely demolished. One day of intense play was all it took. Granted the warranty on this car covered maybe its first 2 minuets of use and it wasn’t meant to last forever, but I figured it had more than a day in it. However, think of all it must have seen in its short existence as a children’s entertainment, and surly it was better than all the Teletuby episodes combined. It probable traveled the length of the street hundreds of times during the day. It was fought over, crashed into, sat on, jumped on, jumped over, pushed, pulled and enjoyed by at least 15 kids on the street. The back wheels probably feel of multiple times before it became impossible to hack them back on and then it was probably used more as a sled than a cart for a while. Once that wore the front wheels off dissecting the remainder of the car became much more of a game than strategically trying to build it up again. I know all this because I was once a kid and remember having jousting matches on the sidewalk with our big plastic big wheels, taking them to pieces in the process when I was 8. Here are some pictures of what the cart looks like now.

If you divide up a systems energy into that which does work, useful energy, and that which goes to wast, useless energy – in the context of productivity, advancement and the capitalist dream or just the elusive perpetual motion machine, than one interpretation of entropy is the useless energy. But think how much energy those 15 or so kids used up throughout the course of the day as they slowly and enjoyably destroyed their cart through natural play. Their play most definitely increased the overall entropy of the situation so what if any useful work did all that energy do. I believe it went into molding and shaping their mind and character. Through the course of a days playing they learned a few important lessons, might understand social interactions a little better, saw the value in having a cool play toy and learned what its like when that toy no longer works. Because of this one day they may grow up to be loving, carrying, socially engaged adult citizens. Who can actually judge the true value and worth of child’s play.

Now for a total change of subject on our current theme. As many of you may know my bike was plagued with a terrible case of increasing entropy. At last count the breaks didn’t work, it had no peddles, the gears wouldn’t shift into low gear with out me kicking the shifter while riding, the chain fell off frequently in high gear, and it was to small for me. I’m quite happy to report that I bought a new bike on Sunday. My host uncle owns a truck and took me to the mall in Nelspruit and the bike shop. The guy in the store tried to sell me a really nice bike with disk breaking, locking rear and front shocks and a host of other pretty nice things that also happened to be way out of my price range. I talked him down a few models by explaining I only needed this bike for another 17 months, wasn’t going to ride any races, and would only use the cash I had in the envelope in my backpack. Needles to say I am enjoying the new bike very much and hope to do a nice trip up the back roads in Barberton’s mountains soon. I’ll post about it when I get back, and I’ll probably tweet from the top.

This was originally just going to be a small tweeter post and then so many insightful things emerged out of todays volleyball practice that I decided to make it a full post. First maybe a quick explanation of why I’m all of a sudden talking about volleyball. For the last 5-6 weeks I’ve been playing volleyball ever Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings (on Wednesdays I cook for my host family) with a group from the township. It’s has been lots of fun and a great learning experience since for the first few weeks half the time I had no idea what is actually happening or where I was supposed to go. Some rules they are really strict about (you can’t touch the net or trespass for any reason) but others they actively ignore ( kicking the ball if it is out of reach is encouraged and due to the extraordinary almost innate soccer skills everyone has its normally just as good or better than using hands). The athletic skills of the group are very mixed and there are some guys that can spike the ball so hard it will bruise and other’s that have trouble setting a simple server. I probably fall somewhere towards the lower end of skilled ball control and the challenge of constantly having to try my hardest is really great. My daily adventures on the volleyball court are also a great opportunity to have some fun in a very relaxing environment and do some people watching when I’m sitting on the sidelines waiting to play in the next game.

So now to things I learned today at volleyball.

First I learned that pump needles are completely optional when pumping up a sports ball. I’d always sort of thought that those needles that came with pumps, and would inevitably be lost before actually need, were created for the sole purpose of annoying you. But it turns out all you need is a little bit of ingenuity and determination and you can throw all the pump needles you have away. Today when the ball needed to be pumped they had one person hold the ball really steady and another person press the pump nozzle as hard as they could over the opening and force air in. I’m really not sure if this simple idea would have ever occurred to me. I know of times when I’ve spent 20 min looking for the needle so I could pump up a ball when thinking outside the box and asking if I really needed the needle in the first place might have been a much quicker solution. This is a really great and simple example of the resourcefulness you see around here.

The second thing I found really interesting today was how the basketball players on the court next to the volleyball net let a younger kid play with them. Here are all these 20 something guys that play some really physical basketball and they let this kid that must be about 8 or 9 play with they yesterday. I’m not sure if it was because none of the younger kids his age that always hang around the courts and kick a soccer ball back and forth showed up or what but today he was playing with all these guys twice his age, height and weight. I would think that would be really intimidating but he seemed to be having fun even though he obviously wasn’t passed the ball very often and mostly just ran around the court following the ball. I was sort of surprised the older guys didn’t tell him to get of the court and out of their way. I wouldn’t say they went out of their way to patronize him and play easy for him, but at the same time they let him run around the court and be (mostly) included. I guess this left such a big impression on me because so often I see kids being totally ignored by the grown up world and it was really great to see them at least not being kicked out of it.

The third thing I learned at volleyball wasn’t so much a new insight but a reenforcement of the old adage brain and control over brawn and raw emotion. The way we usually play volleyball is with teams of 3 or 4 in games to 10 and then the winning team gets to stay on. Today one team stayed on the court through an entire rotation. It was a team of two and one of the guys was this 6′6” super spiker. He basically carried the team because anytime he got to spike the ball most rational people started playing dodge ball instead of volleyball. After a super spike sent another team off the court the next team took the field prepared for another beating. But this time the old man who seems to be person who organized the volleyball practices took the ball to start serving with a sly smile, in this sense old is relative because he’s probably only in his 40’s but everyone else that plays is most likely in their 20’s.

For the first 3 servers he served his not very powerful but very misleading knuckle ball to the big spikes partner. Now since volleyball is a game of three hits per side this means the first hit goes to the partner, second hit to the big spiker and third hit to the spiker’s partner, who can spike the ball but not so hard that it’s impossible to stop. Now along with being a great spiker and amazing server the big spiker is also very competitive and after winning so many games being down 3-0 was pretty aggravating. He started letting his emotions get the better of him and would try to spike the second ball and then yell at his partner for not picking a good spikable ball from the server when he slammed it into the net or out of bounds. I don’t really know what he was saying to his partner since it was all in SiSwati but based on the tone doubt it could have been very nice. To shut him up the server unexpectedly sent a ball to the far back corner of his side that he couldn’t handle and couldn’t blame on his partner. In the end they finally lost 10-4 and it was because even though the 6′6” young guy was much more talented then the old man he let his emotions rule him and even though they had won the last 6 games was so competitive that he demoralized his partner for one or two mistakes.

Rainy season has most definitely come here. The last week while I was biking home I suddenly noticed how green the fields next to me were and remembered how just a week ago they had been brown and dry. And when I looked up at the surrounding mountains the trees that used to be the only dark green spots in a see of brown where absorbed by the new growth all around them. I wish I had taken some pictures of what this place looked like just 2 weeks ago so I could do a comparison. The change must have been really gradual before I actually noticed it but I wasn’t paying enough attention. Next year I’m going to try to take weekly photos of the mountains from mid October till mid November.

For the last week now almost every other night starting around 6pm there has been a giant thunderstorm. The storm clouds billow up on the horizon getting dark and dark as you watch the far off lighting approach. And then all of a sudden the wind picks up really fast and it starts raining and then in less than a minute it’s pouring. The electricity was knocked out during the last storm so I sat by my window and watched the neighboring houses get illuminated in lighting strobes as pouring rain came down in horizontal sheets. The shear awesome power in a thunderstorm is amazing to behold and I’ve seen more in the past 2 weeks then in a typical year back in Virginia.

The rains are very nice. On days that it rains the high will be about 27°C (80°F) but on days it doesn’t rain it can get up to 38°C (100°F). After the last two days of overcast raining weather I’m actually wearing long paints and a sweatshirt right now. Biking around on days it doesn’t rain isn’t that much fun. On the other hand biking around while it’s raining isn’t that much fun either. It’s the time right after the rain when it’s nice and cool that its the best out side. But then you get really really muddy.

And that leads me to the vicious circle that the rainy season causes. The rains might be really good at alleviating the hot temperatures but they’re also really good at carving valleys into dirt roads, turning walking paths in to frog ponds, and making the local soccer pitch a mud bath. All this mud means your cloths get dirty faster. However, doing laundry not only requires 2 hours of hand washing outside but preferably a nice sunny 3 hour period to dry the cloths on the line. So the rains make your cloths more dirty requiring you to do laundry more often and and the same time prevent you from doing laundry at all. It’s the rainy season Catch 22. Normally I wait till the weekends to do my laundry since I have my computer class and schools to visit during the week. But I think I might just have to take advantage of the next sunny day when ever it occurs because the probability of there being clouds and some rain on the next weekend is pretty high.

Makes you wonder how they did laundry in Seattle before dryers were common.

Over the past few weeks I have had several opportunities to render a great service to people. That service is the all important enlightenment about the silent vibrate profile on cell phones! My host mom recently bought a new cell phone, and this phone is a power house of computing power. It has the ability to view word, excel and power point documents, plays mp3s and videos, comes with a 5 megapixel, built in bluetooth and wifi, and could probably control the TV if I spent some time digging through the manual. So anyway one of the first things that she asked me to show her how to do was put the phone in silent mode. I was more than happy to help with this because cell phones going off during meetings, class, or any other inappropriate time is a major problem here. For most of the cheaper phones there’s nothing you can do about this since they have no silent or vibrate option (why those are considered advanced features is beyond me) and these advanced phones hid the option so deep down in the Tools or Settings options that it makes it hard to change.

I fumbled around the settings on the phone (reading manuals sometimes takes longer and in never quite as much fun) for a few minutes and managed to change the up short cut key to take her to the phone profiles page. Since then I’ve had to do this service for about 3 other people. I’ve also been showing people how to get more out of the expensive phone’s they are buying. When you show someone how to use the funny picture frames on their phones camera it doesn’t take long for the phones background to change to their 2 year daughter with a clown face superimposed over her or a snowy boarder around their house. These phones are all really powerful and teaching people to use the more advanced features is quite a rewarding task. Of course I never have to teach any of the kids anything about the phones and ofter learn things from them. My supervisors son was with me at work and told me all about the best sites for downloading MIDIS or flash videos to my phone. My host mothers nephew showed me how all the kids here chat online all day with a program called MxIT where he has over 100 friends he talks to daily.

On a completely different note I was told today by another volunteer that today is SA18’s 100^th day in South Africa. With everything that has happened and all the new and amazing people I’ve meet it seems like it should be much longer than that, but at the same time when I look at pictures from back home or talk to friends it seems like just yesterday I drove with my family to staging in D.C. I think if I have time this weekend I’ll make a javascript counter so everyone can now how many days we’ve been here. It will be a good weekend project to add to my already long list of weekend projects.

I still have about 1 CD’s worth of podcasts from the 4 my Mom sent me at the end of August. So even though I’m trying to ration them a little yesterday during my weekend morning run I listened to this Speaking of Faith podcast about play. As it turns out that was an excellent choice because later in the day I would have an opportunity to observe some of the things Dr. Stuart Brown said about play and how important it is for the development of children. He said that children at play should be able to govern themselves and make up their own rules. That in most cases the kids themselves can take care of the playground bully and by doing so learn through play how to navigate and interpret the complex social dynamics of human society.

After a long day of reading and cleaning inside to avoid the heat outside I was feeling pretty restless and needed to expend some energy. I grabbed my frisbee and headed out to the street knowing that within seconds the neighbor kids would emerge. Instead of playing in the street like we had the last few times it was suggested that we go to the large field near by. So I set out with the three neighbor boys for the field. Now with so much open space the semi organized game of catch we had played in the confines of the street turned into a full fledged chaotic scramble of energetic 8 year olds. Someone would throw the frisbee has hard as they possibly could sending veering wildly in a random direction and everyone would run after it as it rolled around on the ground, who ever coming up with it in the end got to throw it as hard as they could.

Within about a minute of playing a few other kids had gathered watching timidly from the side. I tossed the frisbee over so it would land close to them and they could get it before the group of kids chasing after it got there and in this way the group of three that I started out with grew into about 20 kids. It was interesting how they were all about the same age ranging from 7-10 any older and they walked right by and younger and they watched and laughed but never tried to participate.

Since it was just that morning that I had listened to the Speaking of Faith on play as I played with them I watched with a much more critical mind the interactions between all the kids. The extroverted ones would climb all over me like the human jungle gym I am and ask an unending stream of questions. Others were shy and unwilling to even give me a hive five. Some would throw the frisbee with reckless abandon not caring about technique or where it landed, while others would ask me how to hold it and throw it correctly. Each and every kid had their own unique personality and it was truly amazing watching them interact.

Eventual some unspoken rules emerged. As long as the frisbee was in the air on on the ground everyone had equal claim to it, but as soon as someone had a firm grip it was theirs. And if two kids grabbed it at the same time a brief tussle would ensue. But very quickly kid would yield based on what I can only imagine is a complex equation involving all their past encounters, who most recently threw the frisbee, how firm each ones grip was and many other small factors I couldn’t see. The rules of play operate under their own enigmatic laws. Sometimes only two kids would run after the frisbee others everyone would scramble after it for reasons far beyond my comprehension.

It was great just to be playing for the fun of it. No one carried about wining or losing, and in fact there were no points to keep track of. If you didn’t get the frisbee on time all you had to do was try a little hard to the next to get it. All that mattered was that everyone was having fun and enjoying themselves.

Today when I was walking down the main street to a play in the local gym I saw a little boy skateboarding on just one rollerblade. He was really skilled at balancing on the one blade while at the same time kicking feverishly with other his barefoot. As I watched him he effortlessly jumped the curb and started off-roading. I don’t know how many of you have ever tried going over gravel and dirt on rollerblades but its a pretty knee jarring experience and this kid did it so easily on just on blade.

He continued down the road and I started wondering what had happened to the other blade. Did he have a brother that was just as adept at rollerblading with just the left blade or maybe they are ambidextrous unirollerbladers. Maybe the left blade broke but that wasn’t a reason to throw away the perfectly good right blade only summons to master the challenging art of unirollerblading. It is being able to walk down the street and see something like this that total totally amazes me and makes each day a unique and wonderful experience.

To day was a perfect day!

I woke up around 6:30 and read in bed for an hour.  Then went for a 40 min run around the big loop between the township and Barberton.  At one point the run takes me past lots of shops and street stalls and they were all getting ready for Saturday shopping day.  The place was so alive and I greeted everyone I passed.

When I got home I made pancakes for my host Grandma then did my laundry and once that was drying read out in the sun behind the house for 3 hours.  I ironed my cloths (Something I never used to do but here it’s really important.  The first week at my home stay my host mom said I couldn’t go out because my pants were’nt ironed, I didn’t tell here that I couldn’t remember ever ironing them at UVA) and cleaned my room.  I eat dinner with my host family and then read some more and now am sitting here with a cool breez bring night music into my room.

It’s days like this where I had tones of time to relax and read, time to spend 3 hours doing laundry and cleaning that I never really had at school since there were always projects and assignments due early next week.

Next week the school open back up for the last term in the year.  Hopefully I’ll be able to get out of the teaching center a little and meet some of the teachers and students.

Hope eveyone else had an enjoyable and peaceful weekend as me!