September 2009 Archives

7th June, Puyang Primary School. The original campus collapsed during the 512 Earthquake. The current campus is now a cluster of hastily erected temporary classrooms.

It is the last day of school before the summer vacation. On the blackboards are lists of summer homework and assignments. Some parents are anxiously waiting for their child outside the classroom.

The tasks for us OLPC volunteers is twofold -- firstly, to set up the classrooms and XOs, and secondly to hold XO workshops for primary school students.

This is how the classrooms looked like when we arrived:

[Apologies to those who do not read Chinese, here's the long due journal of the Sichuan deployment trip in English! Enjoy~]

On the morning of 6 June, Hong Kong International Airport.

8 people in our group, volunteers for this OLPC deployment trip. Our destination is for Dujiangyan, Sichuan. Our mission? To give 1000 XO laptops to children in Puyang Primary School, and to hold a few "XO workshops" to provide a bit of basic training for them. We hope that by deploying the laptops before summer vacation, the children will have ample time to get themselves familiar with their new friend during the summer.

The trip lasts for 5 days, so there aren't too many personal items to bring. Yet one of our volunteers, Charles, appeared with huge luggage. "That's the School Server inside", he explained.

The luggage of two other volunteers, Jacky and Henry was quite heavy too. Jacky, as our de-facto-official photographer, stuffed his luggage with expensive-looking gear. Henry, another photography enthusiast, seems to have brought luggage that equaled his body weight. And of course it wasn't just photography gear -- technical accessories such as mice, wireless routers, USB flash drives, etc. were all prepared just in case we needed them.

六月九日。

都江堰的天氣一直在陰天和下雨之間，令人有種陰晴不定的感覺。記得這幾天晚上下雨比較多，日間倒沒怎麼把我們弄濕。

我們都在想，但願今天也如是。

今天舉行 XO 捐贈儀式，成都、都江堰等相關部門的領導都賞面出席，而地點就在蒲陽小學的露天操場。雖說 XO 有防水功能，但如果要在大雨中舉行儀式，也不免大煞風景了。

幸好，天公造美，既沒下雨，也沒有露出猛烈的陽光。