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Geeking in the Third World
suzipaw writes "Geekcorps founder Ethan Zuckerman, late of Tripod, gets some well-deserved media attention for his good works via an interview on oreilly.com. What he and other volunteers are doing on behalf of developing nations is pretty darn cool. And humbling--makes this first-worlder grateful for a regular power supply."
isn't there still an issue with things like, well, food, medicine, clean water, stuff like that?
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
OH NOES
The more you know, the less you understand.
makes this first-worlder grateful
for a regular power supply."
Our computers are horrible power hogs for what they do. if you had to conserve your electrical power like they do in a 3rd world or even a 2nd world you would realize this.
Try living off the grid, it is possible and many 1st world people do it.
What you are grateful for is the fact that you are spoiled by the luxuries we have in the modern countries.
many of the advances in personal powering and conservation is created by these people that are trying to get the 3rd world countries closer to where we were in the 60's.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It's Old World, New World, Third World, not First world, Second World, Third World.
"I'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
child: papa, will we eat today?
father: no my son, but we will get to search the internet for information on food and food-like products.
Trolling is a art,
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THEY NEED FOOD AND SHELTER FIRST!!
I think you're joking, but just in case someone takes you seriously: they need the means to PRODUCE their OWN food and shelter. That means technology.
Give a man a fish, and all that...
Actually, with so much old computer kit being donated to the third world by companies etc (there must be a tax break or something - that and it saves paying to dispose of it) there's a lot to be said for sharing expertise, especially if those doing it are competent in working with Free software so that basic things like all the machines in a school running the same stuff can be taken care of. At the moment these machines run with what they came with and are nearly always next to useless. Well, unless you count the ones being used as doorstops and steps.
Of course there are other important things to do in these parts of the world, but the way I see it, sharing out expertise never did anyone any harm - it's a comodity both free and invaluable.
Something like this fits perfectly with Linux/OS philosophy. If technicically-minded people in developing nations can be shown how to run modern, full-featured computers/networks with the older hardware available to them, you remove the need for pricey (probably American) consultants, newer, expensive hardware, and newer, license-laden, expensive software.
Basically, I believe that developing nations deserve to get on their own two feet without tithing a percentage of their resources to American technology firms. Yes, I am an American. And yes, I will be volunteering in the future.
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
food and shelter requires $$
$$ in today's world requires technology.
The Swedish Mac-guru Ulf "Omar" Henriksson have single handidly shipped over 1500 used and refurbished Macs to schools, libraries and hospitals in Kenya. Every Mac was donated by Swedish individuals and businesses for this charity purpose.
:)
In Kenya he have educated quite a lot users and admins in the ins and outs of Mac, the Mac OS and computers in general.
More info (in Swedish) at http://www.macs-to-africa.info/]Macs to Africa.info.
If you have any questions, feel free to mail "Omar" at guru.macsupport(at)telia.com.
And no.. PCs are not welome
- Henrik
- when the Shadows descend -
I was discussing with a friend of mine last night about organizations such as the peace corps, and my lack of applicable skills to help an NGO (non-governmental-org, I believe). She pointed out that NGOs need people to do all the same things that we need people for here in the first world, citing that the hospital for which she had worked in Haiti required administrative staff and an IS department, despite being a hospital run by an NGO in Haiti.
I agree that there are definitely priorities, the food and shelter bit. Also, it's remarkably difficult to give people technology when there are so many prerequisites for it. It's a tough call to make, whether www access is that helpful to people in the third world, who may not even have the necessary reading skills (language skills, too) to utilize the information they find.
That said, if bringing technology to these people also brings literacy and knowledge, then it can be an important step in enabling these people to grow on their own.
Developed Nations, Developing Nations. Communists are basically ignored.
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
Oh yeah, the guy feels very well in said country trading glasses and whistles for significant african souls. Kind of back to the time when america was discovered.
:P
Actully looking at the picture with him and elephants I thought immediately "who weights more" - he or those young elephants.
I won't comment on "hacking in the third world" at all
- Arwen, I'm your father, Agent Smith.
- Well, you're just Smith, but my father is Aerosmith!
Bram Moolenaar, the author/maintainer of the amazing vim visited a school/community center/development center in Uganda a few years back, and when he returned to Europe, he, along with others, setup a charity in the Netherlands to support the center. Those who use and enjoy vim (and those who don't!) "are encouraged to make a donation for needy children in Uganda." Go to the International Child Care Fund and make a donation, or at least click through their Amazon affiliation links next time you buy something from there. That way, it doesn't even cost you anything...
Wouldn't it be nice to Slashdot a charity with donations? :-)
Paranoia isn't an infectious condition, it's a way of life
and
So you go ahead and post it on Slashdot! Like no one's gonna see it there! Sheesh! Remind me never to ask you for help moving my money out of the country! It's not like they send those e-mails to just ANYBODY ya know!
My journal has hot
Ballmer's travel agent confessed, "With so many poor and helpless goats, Steve will be sure to visit and pump some badly needed funds into the local economy, in exchange for certain favors." Ballmer could not be reached for comment.
If they are able to get internet, power, "e-commerce" etc... up and running then these "3rd world" nations will be able to start making money which will in turn open up jobs where people will have money to spend to buy and produce things like food and shelter or better tools to produce these things.
That's just my ($1.00 - $.98 tax) worth
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
That O'Reilly simply is a money grubbing corporation. Why? You may ask, well i'll tell you. In 1998, they allied with Microsoft to slander open-source, but jumped the boat on it when it became the next big thing, as we now know. It's good they're doing so much to help Linux, but I just thought you guys should know their past.
Yes it's totally obvious, the facts you've presented have me totally convinced that Tim O'Rielly is a money-grubbing Microsoft peon.
What a blind fool I've been.. I thought that O'Reilly hosted the first Open Source Summit back in 1998, and that Tim O'Reilly the wrote a letter to Microsoft critizing their stance on OSS, revealed in the "Halloween documents".
But now I am enlightend! Thanks mister troll!
I came to Guyana, South America in 1995, having worked in telecoms for 6 years. They had no internet access - not a single link. I used to dial Barbados and collect my email. Surfing was an expensive luxury. Still, managed to get the newspaper I was working for on the web (now Stabroek News).
The O'Reilly article is wonderful - clearly shows that the digital divide will not be bridged by IBM or Micro$oft and that hardware is not the answer - skill transfer is. Also shows how reliable power is not a given in developing countries (and, of course post-Enron California...
Now we have ADSL, satellite, fibre (Americas II). Still regular blackouts though.
Check out the Guyana SDNP, the UNDP Digital initiative.
Backward%20compatibility%20is%20over-rated
Give man a fire and he'll be warm for the night, set a man on fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life :)
Of course the grandparent does bring up a good point, i don't think these computers are going to people who desperately need the three basic necessities. I for one would really like to some first-hand experience over there, but I don't have the time to do it yet. I have a friend who went with his family to Bangladesh for a year when he was in 8th grade.
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
Let the Junis jokes begin...
-Sean
Check out my new case modded rice cooker!!
Wait, I thought we didn't geek in the third world, we fabricated reasons for war and then went in and took their oil?
--------
Free your mind.
And some years later they'll outsource our job to Uganda.
Greater *desire* for food and shelter? Or greater ability to obtain food and shelter? Because I think there's nothing like famine and homelessness to increase desire for food and shelter.
Heisenberg might have been here.
Hey, maybe once Ghana gets their IT infrastructure up to speed, they can launch their own version of the Nigerian Email Scam.
Unfortunately this says "the lack of a well-developed financial infrastructure limits the country's utility as a money-laundering center". Bummer.
Maybe these guys deserve attention, but not nearly as much as Engineers Without Borders. It may be considered trolling on Slashdot, but to most people it is obvious that there are more urgent problems for many of these countries/cities/villages than lack of Internet access.
"If you think education is expensive, try ignorance" - Derek Bok
this guy should be admonished for attempting to teach IT skills to a third world country. Next thing you know, greedy american companies will be outsourcing IT or programming work to people in Ghana for pennies and letting 3 well-paid American programmers go.
For the sarsacm inpaired, I think what this guy is doing is great. What I don't think is great is the guild/labor mentailty of some programmers and IT people who think there is a fixed amount of wealth in the world.
The key is in investing in both the INFRASTRUCTURE (computers, networks, etc) and the APPLICATIONS (value-creating services that use the infrastructure).
You can use the Internet to find information about things besides the latest NVIDIA chip or whether or not JFK had an affair with an itern. From what I understand, the reasons why developing countries are "developing" instead of "developed" aren't simply that it's physically impossible for them to produce enough food or shelter. It seems to me that Internet access could be more useful than a shipment of grain and medical supplies. As we all know, there's a lot of useful information available on the Internet, not to mention the ability to organize political and social organizations quickly and cheaply. From what I hear a lot of donations of food or medical supplies end up getting stolen or wasted anyway.
You mean there are people who don't need Mountain Dew, Funyuns and Porn?
"I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
I don't know the history of O'Reilly press so I can't comment on if what you say is true or not, but some of us have this idea of forgiveness and that people/corporations can make amends. So even if they did once slander open soure they have since relized they were wrong and reformed their ways to become one of the strongest proponents. They are helping us now and have been long enough that I am convinced they are more then just fair weather friends and we should embrace them. Hell if Microsoft wants to reform their ways I will take them back and happily drop my prejustices agains their product and would consider it on equal terms with anything else.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
For Christ's sake, I was being sarcastic. I was mocking the inevitable 300 comments denouncing anyone trying to do any good for the Third World in the technology sphere by saying "But they need food and water first!"
Moderators around here are smoking the cheap crack.
If it ain't broke, you need more software.
Are there better things the money can be spent on? (yes, their infrastructure can't even handle electricity properly: do you prefer a functioning hospital or a functioning Internet cafe?)
Does an HIV sufferer need to learn how to set up antialiased fonts in X?
Try not. Do or do not, there is no try.
-- Dr. Spock, stardate 2822-3.
life in the third world is inconvenient for computers and computer users. i live in mexico, not quite the third world country you would imagine, but nonetheless we experience random power outages with no viable explanation. it's frustrating to be working on something or just plain writing an email and POOF! lights go out for who knows how long. *shrugs* just my two cents
1)dig in back yard with shovel 2) ??? 3) C64!
Surely this is a contradiction because geeks are the very products of our very rich, western world.
eg: People with too much time and money.
How many Africans do you know that waste huge loads of time and resources on creating scale-models of popular star-ships?
eg: You damn Star Wars fans!
Beyond power, other problem in dev. countries is harder or expensive to get parts when you are building something. I worked in a data acquisition project in south america and we used to request free samples from chipmakers. Now it's harder, some only ship to U.S.
Bring some of that magic IT money to the US. Aint seen any of that lately. Fear them comercials saying "Learn Computers Skills for your great job tomorrow!". I learn them skills, tomorrow just hasn't come yet.
I worked for an ISP in Dar es Salaam for a little over a year. I highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys having responsibility, freedom to innovate and a steep learning curve. This whole 'does a lot of work for charity' thing gives me the creeps though. Businesses are businesses, even in Africa. Sure, there is a huge skills gap - so if you want to plug it flash your CV around every ISP you can find and you're bound to get lucky. NGOs are just a source of free money/skills and they don't make business sense. As an IT professional you're a valuable commodity - so I don't see why anyone from the States or elsewhere should be paid less than the going local rate for their work - let alone why the business you're working for shouldn't pay you. In the long term, providing cut-rate western expertise to businessmen in the developing world just makes the rich richer.
And lastly, as we all know, you can't be taught the skills you need to be a sysadmin - you have to learn them by yourself. All the guys i met in tanzania had taught themselves from scratch because they realised they were onto a winner.
Seriously though, technology encourages a greater desire for food and shelter.
???
???
Or, let me put it this way: ?!!
Would you be so kind a produce any kind of argument, evidence or even flimsy conspiracy theory for that completely bizarre statement?
The rest of your post was funny though.
>> ,,, cultural homogenization!
The 21st Century's version of White Man's Burden.
It takes a fair amount of Western arrogance and bigotry to decide what's best for someone else. Let people decide for themselves what they want.
And, I know that's difficult for people who think that non-Westerners aren't really up to the job and have to be protected by "enlightened" anti-corporate well-fed Westerners.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
If you've never been to a third-world country and you have a chance to go, please go.
I recently (fall 2002) went to Nicaragua to do research for a website for a Nicaraguan mission group. In reality I somewhat disagree with what they're doing, my friend and I joked that it was the Inquisition all over again. Anyway...
The first thing you notice upon landing in Managua is how unbelievably poor everybody is. Sure there were a few people in suits but most people were wearing T-shirts that had obviously come from the U.S. (high school reunion shirts, prom night shirts from high schools in Virginia).
We stayed in Leon and the people there had no concept of a computer, they damn sure knew what a camera was though! It's completely unbelievable to someone from the States to see how they live. But they don't know any different, so they're happy, or at least content.
Some of the kids had never seen television so when we taped them on DV and played it back for them on the spot they went apeshit. Most of the people in the outskirts of Leon just steal electricity by throwing wires across the main lines. We saw a dog that had been in the way of one of these wires and it was burned clean in half. The poles that hold the wires up are usually just sticks or the wires are stapled into a tree. Unbelievable.
A country like Nicaragua needs more infrastructure before a truckload of computers would do them any good. Good luck getting that truckload of computers through customs anyway. The mission group we're doing the website for had the damndest time getting a container of clothes and miscellaneous goods through customs.
The best part of the trip was riding around the streets of Managua with our driver California... that kid could outdrive Colin McRae, I shit you not. We'd be doing 120KM/hr through the busiest street I've ever seen anywhere and he's hanging out the window singing Nelly (andale andale uh-oh... you know the song) Christ that was funny.
I should probably tell my side of the trip on my own site but I guess the mission site will have to do, due to my laziness.
You've got an easy breezy wind at your back...most of the time.
As far as I know, there are three different countries in South America where Guyana is part of their names: Frech Guyana, Surinam or Dutch Guyana, and British Guyana. But I might be wrong. Can you clarifiy it for me? Thanks.
In USA, big companies are pushing for unfair laws (DCMA, DRM etc.), but you guys have strong civilian supported organizations to confront that (EFF, FSF etc.). Isn't it dangerous to help 3rd world countries to develop IT companies before those countries get a "software aware" population? Aren't all those countries laws going to be made by companies alone?
Never get to fall in love
Never get to be cool
Although really, the last two are inevitably the result of geeking pretty much anywhere.
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nor does it invalidate someone's annoyance with them.
Here's an example from part-time comedian, full-time leftist David Cross: When someone says "Dude, that was so funny I literally shit my pants!" you still understand what he means, but that doesn't mean his usage of "literally" is in any way correct or commendable.
What Would Jesus Do
(for a Klondike bar)?
Keep on geeking in the Third World!...
(repeat 32 times)
What Would Jesus Do
(for a Klondike bar)?
Yes.. I can see it.
Nigerian money scam all over again, but from more sources.
I'll be the first to have a webcam in my hut!
--
Almost serious.
You can't possibly screw up a CD, short of scratching it to hell. Knoppix kicks ass, Morphix is coming along well... I use Knoppix to convert my friends, I let them try Knoppix and if they like it I talk them into letting me install a dual boot :-) Even the dumbest windows dummy can get Knoppix working. All you need is simple ways to save to the hard drive, I haven't really played around with that so it might already be easy. The main problem I suppose is that old machines already run slow, running them off a CD would be even slower... so I guess you just stick the image on the hard drive.
RUMP Refuse to Use Microsoft Products
Excuse me?
I'm sorry that I take offense at the further expansion of a gluttonous Western society that prefers to gorge itself on everything available to it without thought for the future.
I'm sorry that I take offense at the further expansion of a morally bankrupt Western society that places the dollar above all else.
I'm sorry that I take offense at the further expansion of a pampered Western society that is only able to carry on its lifestyle with the labour of the less "fortunate".
I'm sorry that I take offense at the further expansion of a Western society that has to have an entertainment industry to satisfy its need for pleasure.
And I think it takes a fair amount of Western arrogance and bigotry to think that we're better off than they are, you smug, jingoistic, ass.
Just like Catholicism and the other Christian religions, the IT industry knows that a
significant part of its future lies in the third world.
Only difference is that they send nobody missionaries, we send somebody millionaires.
http://jesus.everdense.com/
Then you offended by things that don't exist.
(Probably due to being brainwashed by pompous guilt-ridden and arrogantly bigoted academic types. Haven't been in the Bay Area lately, by any chance?)
Western technology, culture, commerce and government means Westerners are healthier, better educated, longer lived, and more independent than people trapped in Third World countries. That's a simple truth.
As for myself, I am offended by the anti-Western, anti-globalization know-nothing racist rhetoric spouted by pampered self-loathing white Westerners who blithely deny the value of eveything accomplished in the last 500 years and assume that only they know what's best for their poor non-white Third World brethern. Most of this crowd hates progress so much that they'd prefer to keep their "brothers" in their place tied to subsistence farming, poking sticks in the gorund, so long as they and their buddies can put on their Birkenstocks and fire up the BMW.
It is all founded in racism.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
Living in California did the same for me.
It is interesting that in the third world there is no such thing as the nerd. Before coming to America, people who were socially inept and shy were just that, socially inept and shy... and studious. There is no derogatory term for them like nerds and geeks here in the us.
This brings up another point: why make a term for something that should be good for our society since it brings social change locally (a community grows more advanced and probably more educated) and globally at the scale of the country, when we can go into technical jobs that pull the economy forward?
Actually, if my parents knew of the connotations of the word geek or nerd when I was growing up, they would probably have rubbed it in and warned against it. But they just wonder why I spend so much time working on CPUs and reading and find it strange, not knowing how many equally conditioned people we have out there. Good that they could not call me a "geek" in spanish, even in good will because the lack of the CONCEPT helped me to not feel singled out in society.
"Wireless : LAN
about 15 Years--once a true global network is in place, and you have a device with the equivalent of a T1 connected to the network. It's the size of a palm pilot with hi-res screen and can run for a month on a single battery. It has full video/audio capture/receive and runs equivalent to our current 5GHz processors.
At current rates of progress, this will be available between 15 and 20 years from now, for equivalent to about $40.
I'm sorry, but technology is going to yank every third world nation (and basically all of us) onto the same "platform". Introducing people to these technologies now, however premature they might seem, is a good idea.
Sometimes it's edifying to open yourself up to other fantastic possibilities for our planet... maybe we can make this world into a better place. The pessimism will only slow us down.
And by geek volunteers, do you mean the young, idealist sort? Or the older, wiser, professional, and still idealist sort? The GeekCorps website stresses that it generally declines volunteers who do not have at least 3 to 4 years of work experience under their belt. Idealism does not build irrigation systems, nor does it build efficient information systems. Unfortunately, it takes alot of idealism to work so hard for so little physical reward....it is hard to keep that alive inside of you once you are skilled enough to really make a difference.
But in a more technical sense, much more can be accomplished by using stolid, unixy tools over guiy, themeable tools. Shells scripts and ncurses menus, written in the local tongue (if possible), with simple editors like nano, and browsers like lynx, will not be able to WYSIWYG or play flash, but it will transmit and store information, and probably never, ever, break.
----------------
Together, we will drive the rats from the tundra.
--what's really nice about solar power is how incredibly fast it can be up and running, the almost complete lack of any significant maintenance, and that it actually produces a lot of useful power, especially when you gots *no* power onsite, and onsite can be anyplace the sun shines fairly regularly. Fuel gennys take constant refueling, fuel is expensive enough most places, and they break down fairly regularly until you get into the higher end models. Solar and wind are just great for getting some power to remote places, and to serve as decent backups for primary grid developed areas. And as to the "payback", sure, the stats are correct,turen it around, how much do you get from the normal household variety of consumer junk? How much from some solar PV compared to the amount of power you get out of your 50 inch TV with stereo and tivo??? Or the ordinary shingles on the roof? The jetski? And a lot of other consumer devices? You know what I mean.
You see, we blow the energy produced from oil and nukes, etc on tons of other stuff, stuff that once built, that took tons of energy to build and created pollution and whatnot, that just keeps TAKING power, never gives any back, that never ever is going to give you even a 1% energy "payback", well that one thing could be "sacraficed" instead to get some back. If everone picked out just *one* of their non energy-producing (yes, I know, converting) toys,and got solar or wind or whatever with the same loot, the huge influx of interest and cash and demand just might spur on a little more R &D of the productive sort. And perhaps donate it to some poor village someplace? 1/2 maybe? One decent medium sized panel runs US retail around 200$, a charge controller under 100$, and any old truck battery can be scrounged in even a third world country. You're in business. that's what guys routinely pay for just a video card. skip one generation of 'game" upgrade, get some starter interest solar instead, it'scool, and you can do stuff with it. or donate it. Tithing is a good thing. That's enough juice to run a small laptop for several hours a day, give some place some outside interactive access to the entire world. Lot of knowledge to share then. Or run the HAM radio there, or some lights for people to read at night after working stoop labor all day in the fields, or for the local medic to be able to work. Stuff like that. No giant remote expensive plants to build, no huge amounts of wires to run, with poles and transformers and etc.
Living with it daily myself, I can tell you you learn to appreciate every watt, and you can still geek-out with it, just not as much as people who are rich and can just throw a small part of their check at the electric bill, but it's NICE to have *some* elelctricity, and the bulk of the planet still lives where that is fairly primitive and expensive. That is an exact reason why it's still cool, practical, worth it. I like it because I always have power, even if the local grid goes down, and it's clean power, none of this brownout dirty power action. I started with one panel and my truck battery though, but that was enough for my little TV, a light to read with at night and my radio. cool beans. I imagine for some villages it might be just the ticket. A million dollar electric plant might be out of the question, but a few thou worth of solar and gear might be doable and enough to get by on.
Yup. Do you care to wager how long the planet can support 300 million people living the American lifestyle, not even counting other current and future first world countries?
Man, get it through your head. I'm not saying we should hold back all technology from the third world. I'm saying we should take a lesson from them, in terms of our waste and excess. Frankly, I dislike the Internet. I don't want to hold it back from them, I'd as soon it not exist. But that's a whole other can of worms. And how the hell would this be holding them down? I'm sure the point has been made dozens of times in other comments, but I think we ought to at least start with the food, medicine, (non-telecommunications) infrastructure, and the like before bothering with frivolities like the Internet.
Another point I failed to properly address in my previous post was your attack on the fears of homogenization. Your point of view seems to be that there is nothing worth preserving, and that to want to prevent the Americanization streamroller from passing though is, through some queer twist of logic, racism. Er, right. You realize it should be possible to help them in raising their average standard of living without culturally assimilating them, right?
As for "blithely denying the value of everything accomplished in the past 500 years"... Think of the next five hundred. You know those rainforests? The ones being chopped down to grow McDonalds hamburgers? You realize that stuff doesn't grow back, right? Once the bare ground is exposed, the rain leeches the soil nutrients down to the bedrock, making it infertile. It's why they have to burn so much of it. Do you think that five hundred years from now, people will be looking back at us as favourably as you do at our predecessors?
Real classy, there. "I disagree with you, therefore, um... OMG WTF YUPPIE RACIST PIG!!!11!!one!!!11!".
P.S.,
What the fuck are Birkenstocks?
If you would like to help the developing world as a volunteer but not have to travel, UNV also has an online volunteering service through NetAid. Online assignments are both "techie" (build a web site, build a database, trouble-shoot tech issues) and non "techie" (translate a document from one language to another, design a logo, mentor a student, write an article, etc.).
J Cravens http://www.coyotecommunications.com
Fun thing is that juts stick the water into a clear polythene container (not too large), leave it for eight hour in the sunshine and the UV kills most of the bacterial spores
Once you have the runs, it is nasty as you dehydrate and it kills the vulnerable, again, easy to fix with the right sugar/salt ration in soime relative clean water (see above).
All of this, plus many other things are factoids that exist on the web. You can teach some of these things but not all. This is where literacy is important and access to information.
See my journal, I write things there
I've spent months as a child of medical volunteers in Ethiopia and Haiti and wanted to give other geeks a little insight into what it's like to be in these kinds of places. Geeks might feel especially anxious about a massive change of scenery. I want to argue that in some ways, geeks are the best cultural ambassadors we have and have a great deal to gain from trying. Read on.
I consider myself a pretty typical geek: studious my whole life, had few friends, greatly appreciate my alone time when I can get it, lack of social sophistication, lack of desire to become socially sophisticated.
I was 18 in my last trip to Haiti, so you might keep in mind that my sense of self was still quite green. At first, there was a sense of complete shock at how different people's lives are from those I knew growing up in the U.S. It was like going to another planet. This was both exciting and overwhelming for the first few days. As a geek, I think I was less prepared than others for the powerful effect another cultural mindset can have. My shields were not at 100%, let's say.
As an example, at first it was very hard for me to be the target of panhandling from children: children without shoes asking you for your shoes, your watch, your shirt, any change you can spare. I came to eventually see myself as an actor acting out the part of an elite individual saying "no" to almost all of them, but it took a while to overcome the resentment I felt for being put into this position whether I liked it or not. I eventually learned to make it a kind of game where I would try to divert the flow of events by making them laugh at something unexpected I did, or I would ask them if I could join in on their soccer game with a tennis ball, and then it would turn into great fun. I could go on about how incredibly good-natured some of these super-skinny kids with ragged clothes were. The ones who couldn't be bothered to talk about something besides handouts were likely to leave after a few minutes of my attempts at diversion. Those that stuck around were more likely to follow me back to the house where we were staying to get some small food item or toy. Even simple things like yarn were considered very cool at times.
There was a two week period where I felt a sense of depression because it seemed completely arbitrary that I got to sit in an air-conditioned room in a house, eating and drinking good food whenever I wanted, while countless numbers of people just as deserving as me were going hungry and yet somehow managed to get up every and make the best of it. It probably didn't help that we were there to help at a hospital, where I got to see very sick people struggling to live. The worst were the small children in the burn ward who were often there because illness is sometimes treated with superstitious practices of throwing children into fires, perhaps to exorcise demons.
OK, I think I described my depression pretty well in that last paragraph, but I don't want to overpower my comments with negativity. So I'll move onto what was so great about what I did and why I think every person in the U.S., especially geeks, should try going to a developing country, preferable before they get too old and set in their ways.
It was an experience that has absolutely changed my life. Perhaps it was because I was a geek, but I found myself particularly affected by my exposure to different cultures. This is both good and bad: if you learn how to let it affect you positively, it's good. If you get overwhelmed and depressed from it, it's bad at least in the short term. But in either case, you're living a new experience and life seems fresh and vibrant, like you're a child learning everything for the first time again. Geeks are, I believe, especially "good" at empathy, which is the essential ingredient to building bridges across cultures. Ideally, geeks also need something like a mentor so that their idealism and empathy aren't used against them. So teaming up with other geeks with more experience is probably a really good idea.