Internet

After work today I went to my mayor’s house to show him how he could
use his home computer to access the internet through the phone line.
He told me he would leave the office at 5pm and I could meet him at
his house. So, I left my apartment at 5:30 – allowing for the
standard Moldova lateness – and reassuringly noticed Oleg’s office
window lights were out as I passed by – and arrived at his house 15
minutes later. Of course, Oleg was not there. So I detoured to the
local bar where I found he and a couple of the office crowd sharing a
happy hour drink. He apologized and we headed home. Typical Moldova.

We moved his computer to be next to the phone line, and then I tried
to figure out how to set up their dial-up service in Russian, pulling
on my recollections of where certain menu actions were listed on
computers in English (they’re all in the same places). Eventually, I
figured it out, and voila!

Oleg and his family are now cruising on
the information superhighway.

I showed them a couple news sites in Russian and explained how Google
works, ate dinner with them, and headed off into the chill night
feeling that (besides getting a decent local haircut and fixing a
squeaky door) I accomplished something.