The Doctor is In

Q. Do they have a 4th of July in Ghana?
A. Yes, every year between the third and fifth. :-P

Doing the virus scans has given me an opportunity to speak to every kind of person here at the KM. From the top boss all the way down to the second assistant cook. They call me the doctor. And the computer doctor is like a bartender... everyone wants to talk to me and share their woes and tell their stories. Some of these guys have been working and travelling in the third world for many years and they have some wild tales of things they have seen or experienced. Most of them are about how bad Nigeria is. Someone pointed out that people on board are more sociable than you might expect, and opined the reason is that without Internet access, they really have no choice but to get out and interact with others. Sounds reasonable to me.

Last night I told the kitchen crew I would scan their laptops for viruses and next thing I knew there were 10 Filipinos setting up their laptops for me to scan! We had as many as would fit on a table lined up. These guys tell me they work six months straight on the vessel. Other than the TV, their laptops are about the only source of entertainment they have. So they are very happy to have their machines looked at. In all I scanned and cleaned over 20 computers yesterday. In theory I could do all of all 120 estimated computers in one day, assembly-line style but I would have to have them all up and plugged in at once and that is logistically impossible.