Spring Break Jalalabad - another great success ! Bandwidth is still online and in april there was a FUNdraiser, that within 2 weeks delivered two solar power computer labs to schools near the border.

To see images from the Event held in Northern Virginia go here. Almost 10k raised to support schools and education in East Afghanistan !! Outstanding.

https://picasaweb.google.com/112520904252626169644/AFISEventApril132013?authkey=Gv1sRgCMLo2aPl6YTYWw&noredirect=1

Pace has increased on active projects, and accomplishments. SSF Human presence has decreased, but reachback continues to work and flow.

Updates coming soon.

The Synergy Spring Break Tour is underway. Arch Synergist is on the ground, getting complete on several projects, while exploring solutions to new issues.

Massive Wind Storms have caused a lot of damage to the guest house, and some antenna placements. Local ISPs are having major problems w the new Fiber runs, Security situation in Jalalabad has led to an empty house. Hopefully come May, things will get back on track with more of the team getting on site!

Stand by for sitrep to follow soon:

Its been 5 years in December that I first rolled to Jalalabad. Originally, ISO a Rotary Sister City Project, and a review of Public health Facilities - turned into a 5 year vision quest, and many friends and people to people connections.

I intend to share a summary of goals and objectives in the next few days.

It's all about the relationships Dude !

Meanwhile, check out Tucks awesome "trailer" - or teaser about the august gig, installation training, locally self installed, VPS Solar Systems in two locations. POWER is a most awesome gift we can share with the people of Afghanistan.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eV56djqDUVs&;

ALSO - Check this out, 2 Afghans Climbed to the TOP of the World in 2009!
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/A/AS_AFGHANISTAN_A_MOUNTAINS_TALE?

Summer Surge is ON !!

Alternate Power Systems is a main thrust of this hop -- Two incredible guys, Tuck and Michael - with VPS, Vital Power Systems has a bad ass rig for running solar systems.

Clean Pure power is what we need -- a 3 panel set will go to Taj for Training and Duplication, a 6 panel system will get deployed to a village, to enable internet communications, and business development projects! - Awesome cool !!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TINk9EbPrAI

First Installation is complete - Power to the People !

https://picasaweb.google.com/reachback/PowerToThePeopleTajJuly2011


EJ - if you are out there, drop me an email -
ken@reachback.org

Where to start? After spending a month doing wavz research in coastal North Carolina, learning some new Telemed gear,
https://picasaweb.google.com/reachback/TelemedBootCampFeb2011

decided to move my Jbad trip up - so I could cross paths with the full synergy team @ Taj. It was a wise decision.

To view a sample of my pix, and some i snagged from dave... go here
https://picasaweb.google.com/reachback/MarchMadnessTaj2011#

Along with our usual transit guests, we had the full synergy strike force for the first time together at Taj ! -- it really was amazing how so many projects were ongoing, and we seemed to be in synch with most communications.

Ill defer to someone on the SMS team to explain what is going on with Ushahidi, and community engagement.

Expanded the Hub_Taj node, to include a terrestrial connection, via Roshan to compliment our Nashita VSAT shooting W7, and of course our Bentley Walker/ Hughes modem shooting IS10 back up connection.

Trev, The SSF CIO/SysAdmin somehow pulled it all together, and is in the process of relocating the COMMs room from my room on the Babadeck to a dedicated OFFICE in Room 15, next to the bunker. now designated as the Comms Cave!

Womens Projects, Jenn, Rache n Lou have ongoing women empowerment programs rockin, and the SAFA sponsored womens day was held 2 days early due to security concerns, or a scheduling issue. We missed attending and Ill elaborate on that later.

Progress @ TAJ ! - bring on 2011 !

Current BLOGs of Taj Synergists:

Peretz and Lou
http://www.jalalagood.com/

Miss Jenn
http://fallbreak2010jalalabad.blogspot.com/

Miss Rache
http://rachelinarobb.blogspot.com/

Miss Sara
http://sarahinds.blogspot.com/

Mr. Juan
http://meetjalalabad.blogspot.com/

Day before the Parl. Elections here in Afghanistan, all seems to be well in Jalalabad...

There's small level demonstrations, and one candidate was snagged (kidnapped) last nite.. still trying to figure out WHO it was... Will update this post when I know.

The Taj is booked full, which is a nice change after struggling for the past 2 months to recover from a non existent threat - threat report written by some joker from a local Security firm that had no ground truth in Jalalabad.

We have several election monitoring groups here, IRI, NDI and ... DI - the big cheese - that are out as I type doing polling station reviews, and interviewing candidates in Nangarhar.

It really is pretty amazing that the youth seem to be very motivated and invigorated by the election process, but most older folks say it doesn't make a difference.

This young democracy will do fine, but its going to take a generation in my opinion.

On the Tech front, did a tweak n peak of the sat dish, got pretty phat pipe right now, avg. nearly 3 megs down, 300k up.. with good latency.

Also troubleshooting 2 separate polycom units, and trying to configure with a static NAT ip..and the Omni camera is not functional yet. it worked fine when I left in August, but now is DIW.

House business is in order, a bunch of great folks out here, taking great personal risk to assist and monitor the poll !

Everyone is on lockdown till at least Sunday, so the Taj Thursday night social was small, but great quality regardless of quantity of human energy.

On my third day with little, almost. no.. sleep. Riding it out, to see what happens Saturday, and today as we ramp up to the Elections.

Sister Jenn has been posting a most excellent BLOG, while she and Kate are at Taj, working with Fary Moini of Rotary Fame and other projects for Women and Girls !
Awesome !!

http://fallbreak2010jalalabad.blogspot.com/

Elections are coming up, our little brother Lut, helped do a great news bit on the elections, we don't have sub-titles up yet, but you may get the story ;-)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mbtpya1vBpE

Goals: Utility tech hit for Taj HUB, Guest House Business Plan, Extend NU Digital Library Node, Preparations for Tele-Medicine Clinic/Lab, Jon Moh. Youth Park Landscaping, Discuss and Plan expansion of the Taj Model.

Follow on team arrived about a week later,

Accomplishments: include isolating the FabFi from the Taj Hub, to soley focus on FabFi nodes, relocation of the Medweb Telemed Server to the Comms Room, Staging of the Back Up Sat Connection into Comms room available now as SSID TajToo : Basic Power checkups, adding backup UPS and Power Supplys for Modem, and Establishing Polycom VTC in comms room.

Ramadan Began Aug 11th, so activity will be down for the next month or so... Next up, the Parl. Elections scheduled for September 18th, Insheallah !