Linux in Africa (via Victoria)

[Anthony Yarusso]

Brian Burger wrote:
> Back in late Jan/06 our local LUG - Victoria Linux User's Group - had
> an InstallFest up at the University of Victoria. We had an African guy
> who came in with the older desktop PC; he was the only one to actually
> go to the trouble of bringing a desktop to the Fest.
>
> He was working with one of the missionary groups, and doing
> training in Victoria to set up email-over-shortwave stations in very
> remote sections of Africa. They had been using Windows, but were
> switching to Linux-based tools, hence his appearance at our Fest.
>
> I gave him my email address, and forgot about the whole thing - until
> last week, when I got the following email from the guy (Nzola), sent
> via one of his Linux-powered shortwave/email setups deep in
> rural Mozambique.
>
> This isn't an Ubuntu story as such, just a cool "unexpected Linux" story.
>
> Brian.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: * KAPASENI at zfds.chirpnet.net
> <mailto:KAPASENI at zfds.chirpnet.net>* < KAPASENI at zfds.chirpnet.net
> <mailto:KAPASENI at zfds.chirpnet.net>>
> Date: 26 Sep 2006 11:01:00 -0000
> Subject: Greetings from Kapaseni
> To: Nzola Swasisa <nzola1 at yahoo.ca <mailto:nzola1 at yahoo.ca>>, Carol
> Kerr < c-kerr at shaw.ca <mailto:c-kerr at shaw.ca>>, davidc at cfh.ca
> <mailto:davidc at cfh.ca>, blackcrow at shaw.ca <mailto:blackcrow at shaw.ca>,
> mukahanana at shaw.ca <mailto:mukahanana at shaw.ca>, colinadams at hotmail.com
> <mailto:colinadams at hotmail.com>, fredc at quale.com
> <mailto:fredc at quale.com>, wayne at queale.com <mailto:wayne at queale.com>,
> lorene.anger at waradoo.fr <mailto:lorene.anger at waradoo.fr>,
> blurdesign at gmail.com <mailto:blurdesign at gmail.com>,
> brent at pinetreeline.org <mailto:brent at pinetreeline.org>,
> ketinkoba at yahoo.ca <mailto:ketinkoba at yahoo.ca>, divkwanda at hotmail.com
> <mailto:divkwanda at hotmail.com>, annaikmackay at hotmail.com
> <mailto:annaikmackay at hotmail.com>, sgragina at shaw.ca
> <mailto:sgragina at shaw.ca>, gamesetgo at shaw.ca
> <mailto:gamesetgo at shaw.ca>, kapasseni at yahoo.ca
> <mailto:kapasseni at yahoo.ca>, diversity at shaw.ca
> <mailto:diversity at shaw.ca>, cfoley at shaw.ca <mailto:cfoley at shaw.ca>,
> office at lambrick.com <mailto:office at lambrick.com>,
> warren.dixon at ca.schneider-electric.com
> <mailto:warren.dixon at ca.schneider-electric.com>, gaspal at yahoo.com
> <mailto:gaspal at yahoo.com>
>
> Hello Friends!
>
> PLEASE, DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS ADDRESS. I AM LEAVING THIS VILLAGE
> TODAY. RESPOND TO ME TO nzola1 at yahoo.ca <mailto:nzola1 at yahoo.ca>
>
> I am very excited today to write to you this email because it
> originates from a remote village called Kapaseni, situated in the
> Northern Mozambique. We panned to install 2 Radio Email stations in
> Mozambique and they are all done, so I thought it was good to send you
> this email to say that we have successfully accomplished our system
> installations in Mozambique. Rob left Mozambique last Sunday for
> Zambia after the first install in Sena and I remained and traveled to
> Kapaseni to do the last install. It was a 3 hours trip on a bike from
> Sena to Kapaseni because there are no vehicles on that road. When I
> arrived in Kapasseni I had a soar back. I rested for an hour than I
> started installation. It took me 8 hours though I had many helpers. I
> installed a 12 m pole with 6 guy wires, antenna, solar panel, the
> radio, battery and the computer. Today is my second night here in
> Kapaseni. I am being fed with Nshima (corn flour), beans and chicken.
> I plan to go back to Sena this afternoon "another 3 hours trip when I
> finish training the operators here. In Sena I will do more training
> for one or two days before I proceed for back to Ndola, in Zambia to
> train Radio Email Server Administrators before and work on the Server
> computer before I return to Victoria, Canada on October 31, 2006.
> This email is comes to you via the radio wave, about 900 km away from
> the server and finds the internet.
> Thank you very much for your financial, ideas and advise support and
> we will keep in touch. I have a lot of video pictures to show you.
>
> PLEASE, DO NOT RESPOND TO THIS ADDRESS. I AM LEAVING THIS VILLAGE
> TODAY. RESPOND TO ME TO nzola1 at yahoo.ca <mailto:nzola1 at yahoo.ca>
>
> Bye for now,
> Nzola.
>
Now you have me wondering how it works...I'm curious.

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