DiSC Team: Monday, May 24th, 2004 -- Accra, Legon

A picture of Omar | A picture of RJ and collegues | Samir, RJ and Omar

Today was very productive. We visited Mark Davies, founder of BusyInternet, dropped off and configured the computers at the Balme Library at the Univesity of Ghana, Legon, and got to know the Ghanaian members of our team. We haven't been able to upload our pictures yet though... should happen by wed.

Mark Davies is a dot.com expat who used mostly his own money, along with some other investment to start an Internet incubator company in Ghana called BusyInternet. Busy provides typical Internet cafe facilities, plus office space, conference rooms and liquids (an essential). He also has a few Internet startup type of ventures working on problems confronting typical Ghanaians. Mark is hoping to spark technical innovation among Ghanaians by providing the essential infrastucture for technical activities.

After a short meeting, we arranged another meeting for tomorrow, since he had limited time today, and tomorrow is African Unity day (meaning that the University will be closed). I guess we'll show our solidarity tomorrow by trying to help resolve some of the problems that Africans confront.

Our cell phone works (233-27-779-1790), and we received a call from Bennette, one of the member of our Ghanaian team who works at the library. He swung by the hotel with a van and took us to the library, where we unloaded our things and started to configure the computers.

Considering the circumstances, the mortality rate on our equipment was pretty low: 1 dead monitor, 1 monitor with a dead pixel, and one dead power inverter. Bennette quickly found an extra monitor, and 3 220V UPS's, so we were able to recover from all of the problems.

Slightly famished, we quickly dropped off our clothes off at our house (which is absolutely beautiful), and went to eat at a new pizza and burgers restaurant across the road from Legon (pizza and burgers??? Our Ghanaian team-mates chose the restaurant: we ate mostely chicken). On that note, there also seems to be a thriving business here for serving traditional ghanaian food at ten times the price. Its clearly the atmosphere that people want to pay for.

Back at home, we played hearts to choose who got which room, wrestled with our mosquito tents (I tried to sleep without mine and failed), and collapsed in bed for another good night's sleep.

The running score so far:

1. DiSC team: 3
2. Mosiquito borne illness: 0
One more note: Gregg, we gave your daughter's bag to your driver, but I will try to go and visit her.