Slashdot Mirror
GeekCorps v2.0
GeekAbroad writes "GeekCorps has sent its second wave of volunteers to Ghana, Africa. The group has re-made Geekhalla where you can read about their experiences (yes, it's a blatant slashcode rip-off). There are a few good writers in the group and lots of new content being posted. Check it out." We had a story last year about GeekCorps.
Even though I am 99% sure that the Urban Existentialist is a troll based on previous posts, I have to respond to this one since it currently rated + 5 insightful implying that this is what the Slashdot community thinks of Geekcorps and Geekhalla.
It is true that most African's live in the kind of abject poverty that most Westerners can't even imagine let alone endure. It is also true that basic infrastructure like regular power supply, potable water, health care services, etc. but this doesn't mean that this should somehow preclude African's from the fruits of the 21st century. I've looked at the projects page at Geekhalla and I am impressed by what they hope to achieve. Instead of being like most Westerners whose only thoughts of Africa occur when they guiltily switch the channel whenever one of those commercials asking for money to feed starving children who can be fed for less than $1 a day shows up, these people are contributing something. It is in extremely poor taste for you to bash them for donating their time and resources to a society desperately in need.
Frankly I'm glad they're doing this, with the advent of the Net I've kept in touch with friends I left behind via ICQ and email whom I thought I'd never talk to again due to the prohibitive costs of calling or locating them after they moved. Anyone who is helpingwith the proliferation of the Net in Africa has my thanks and undying appreciation. Oh by the way, for all the other people who are bashing them for going to Africa to make web pages and teach OO programming What the fuck are you doing for the poor and starving of the Earth.
PS: I just spoke got an email from a friend I haven't seen since 1997 who lives in Nigeria and he told me he has a job writing VBA applications for a local company and he is brushing up on his COM and C++. Hope that makes some you guys think before you rate this kind of jingoistic claptrap up.
Grabel's Law
Well, I'm sorry to dissappoint you kids, but thats just not the case at all. What Ghana needs is not a bunch of pony tailed do gooder 'geeks' (how they can have pride in that despicable word is beyond me, but then I'm not American), its sanitation, agriculture, education, books (thats right, old fashioned books, not Internet connections), and end to civil strife and decent irrigation. Once it gets these things we can start to consider some light industrialisation, perhaps.
Doesn't it strike anybody else that this whole exercise is patronising and absurd? Jesus, save the technical talk and trying to bring them into the 21st century - lets bring them into the 19th century first.
What I have said is the plain honest truth as I see it. I have been to South Africa, Zimbabwe and Ghana, and the problems I have seen there are all the same.
This project is just a liberal dream. We need to get practical types there, who know about practical issues and can teach the practical natives. Sending people versed in OOP design is pointless, and a patronising waste of money ('Oh look! You too can be like the white man' - save it for your Imperial dreams).
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
You know exactly what to do-
Your kiss, your fingers on my thigh-
I think of little else but you.