March 14, 2008
A sweet letter
At the place where I’m staying we have an awesome domestic worker named Jostina (or Moitsane – her Tswana name). It’s her birthday today and she gave me a letter which reads like this:
Dear Roger
I’m sorry to bother you, I need some help with a computer. My children are in need of a pc. If you know anyone who has a pc which they don’t use please let us know. If you do have some you can offer help too.
My children go to Boston College where you have to have a pc in order to read.
Please let me know when you found one.
From
Jostina
So, does anyone have a functional pc lying around which they would be happy to give towards a worthy cause? I would probably install Ubuntu on it, so no worries about viruses 
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Roger Saner is a web platform developer (using 
So the story has a happy ending – my sister Heather moved to Durban this year and didn’t need her desktop any more. A few weeks back I installed the latest edubuntu on it, in preparation for having an extra computer around the house and maybe later donating it to the computer centre of an orphanage, since edubuntu can run an entire room of thin clients who boot directly into it.
Anyway, I ran this past the guys I stay with – “It’s Jostina’s birthday today – I have this extra computer that I was going to use for other stuff someday, what do you think?” And everyone overwhelmingly said, “Do it!” which is great – because usually I’d take a few weeks to think about it.
So yesterday afrernoon I drove Jostina out to Hamanskraal and set up her computer for her daughter Pauline (who wouldn’t tell me her African name) and showed her how to login into linux and start OpenOffice. Very cool thing to do
But if anyone still has old(ish) pc’s, let me know – I can easily find a home for them