Ok, bear with me on this for a minute…
Several years ago I worked very hard to bring a nicaraguan potter to my former school to do a 6 wk residency with my students. Cristina was an amazing woman, potter, community leader, social reformer, etc. (I’ll tell you all about the way she led a group of 13 women to create a female pottery cooperative in her small town).
Shelley and I eventually went down to visit Cristina in her element and got to know her family.
3 years or so ago she got sick and couldn’t work anymore. After a year she couldn’t walk. then she was diagnosed with an inoperable cancer and died in May. I’ve sent money to offset the cost of pain killers and have helped in other ways. Her two daughters are studying with scholarship at the university, but she still has one in grade 7 and one in grade 4. The daughter studying Business Administration asked if I could somehow get ahold of a used laptop so she wouldn’t have to pay by the 15 minute interval to use the university computers (remember when it was like that here?). She has many papers to write and the cost is unjustifiable when the dad’s low income has to support the whole family.
I promised nothing, but thought, “now this is a job for the geeks!”
A friend from brainerd who owns land in Nica-landia and also knows the family would likely take whatever I can scrounge together down in January when she goes for her vacation.
If you have any leads, or better any old paperweights that will run xp with sp2, then fire me an email.
See you all next Tuesday.