Blackstone Operations

Day 9 (June 24, 2010)

“Please, have a seat” the principal said, swirling out two small chairs facing his neatly organized desk. Robert and I had returned to the school to have a word with the principal about the lab and a few other things. “How can I help you?” he asked with a large smile?

What a nice smile!

“Do you want to talk about Dreamspark a little?” I asked, turning over to Robert. Robert proceeded to explain Microsoft’s educational program offering free software and downloads to students whose principals contact Microsoft to verify their status.

“Yes” he said, smiling, “I would be interested…” he seemed unsure how to continue.

“We’ll help you out with the application process and all the…technicalities” I piped up. The principal nodded happily and continued to stare at us.

“Another thing I wanted to ask is if you’d be willing to participate in a program where I’m going to try to help link up students at your school with students in America to exchange stuff and basically become connected.”

Dang that was a pretty lame explanation.

“Oh yes!” the principal exclaimed, his smile very big again. “Something like that has always been my dream. I’ve never known how to get that started or what kind of people to contact…” He stared down into his lap for a bit, just smiling. “Yes, I would like that.”

“Great! Yeah this is the part I’m most excited about as well,” I exclaimed happily.

“And perhaps…could we try to connect the teachers?” he inquired?

“Oh yes, certainly. I figured that it would be best to let the teachers decide what it is that they need and for them to feed ideas into each other!” I was pretty happy that he and I were on the same wavelength with what we wanted. Robert must have thought we were big dopes, just sitting there smiling at each other. I decided not to look at him.

Last night Genesis came back from America and it was pretty cool to finally meet him. He had a great smile and seemed very friendly. At some point he Robert and I talked a little “business” but made plans to continue today. That never panned out so tomorrow we’re going to talk instead. It was funny watching him with the kids (two very young daughters Naomi and Tony) because every time they started crying and screaming he would stay calm and reason them into silence. He’s a very calm, patient man it seems—probably useful for someone so heavily involved in non profit work.

Today we didn’t meet because we had some trouble contacting Levi so we decided we would meet tomorrow instead. I didn’t do much today besides working and sleeping. Cameroon lost their final match today, making them 0-3 in the world cup today, one of the worst performances of any team. What was most amazing was the sharp contrast in the general public’s interest in the game. Because their opponent was already guaranteed into the next round and Cameroon was guaranteed not to be in the next round, many reasoned that the match had no real significance and didn’t bother watching the whole thing if at all.

I just realized that I told Pascal that we would hang out tomorrow and not today because I thought I would be occupied with work for Genesis. Not only that, but now I’ve realized that I committed to going on a trip to a nearby city with Adam and Sabrina and we leave in the early afternoon—I feel pretty bad. He actually brought me some mangos because I told him that I like fruit. “Promises, promises,” Levi once said to me, rubbing his face in his hands with exhaustion.