Devouring bandwidth in the internet cafe
Posted by marshall Tue, 29 Mar 2005 22:00:00 GMT
A day in the internet cafe generally starts with showering and eating breakfast in the morning, although I usually just have a cereal bar. Then our driver Adi takes us the mile or so to the UN camp, and we begin setting up the cafe.
The internet cafe doesn't serve any food, just bandwidth to NGOs that want to keep in touch with their organizations, families, and friends. It's a big tent sitting near the entrance to the UN camp, and it has folding tables and plastic chairs inside it. Each table has a couple Ethernet cables running to it so that people can plug in, and we've also got a wireless network set up. Each morning we bring in a couple of big rubber tubs full of equipment. The actual network switch and satellite modem remain in the tent, but the laptops and Voice-over-IP phones get brought in and set up each day.
Once we've set up the equipment, the tent is made available for people to walk in and use. It's officially open from 9 AM to 6 PM, although the wireless connection is always up, so people with their own wireless-capable laptops can use the internet connection 24-7.
We get our lunch at the mess hall, and it's almost always crepes, cold meat sandwiches, and then some kind of soup or noodle dish (usually out of a can). The bread and crepes are fresh, which is nice; I like the crepes in particular. We generally go to the mess hall one at a time and bring our food back to the internet cafe to eat.
For dinner, we either eat in the mess hall, order take-out, or occasionally we eat in a restaurant. The mess hall varies from bland canned Chef Boyardee-style spaghetti more elaborate meals like beef with spiced potatoes and chocolate pie with peach slices. One night we had tacos, or an approximation thereof: hard corn shells, ground beef, tomatoes, lettuce, and onions formed the list of standard ingredients, but they also had cucumbers, cabbage, and other vegetables out as toppings. Noticeably absent was any kind of cheese. Kinda hard to do Mexican food right without cheese.
Tom Mason arrived yesterday to assist in the cafe over the next month. What a welcome he got in the evening...
