Who'll Take Free Internet?

When we left Jeremie, we announced to all the teachers that if they would sign onto the internet once a month and email us with a list of the websites they were accessing, they would get one hour of access free at VDH, one of the cybercafes. They all, without exception, put their names on a list to say they wanted to participate.

This has not gone as expected. First, the internet was down at VDH for a few weeks, precluding them from accessing the internet there. A few wrote from other locations to let us know, and now the service is back up. Joy extended the response deadline to October 15, to compensate for the delay.

As of today, only a handful have written, perhaps 10 of 55. We're not sure if the others aren't interested, can't make it to town to use the service, can't remember how to sign on, don't realize that VDH is up and running again, or what. Anyone who doesn't write by October 15 will be removed from the list. Joy sent out a final email to remind them of this and to encourage them to remind each other.

Finally, even those who have written haven't exactly followed instructions. They are supposed to use the access to find educational information and then tell us which sites. Not one has done this. Typical content is restricted to greetings, thank yous, requests for material, and the announcements that VDH internet was down. We're not sure what to make of this. Perhaps they didn't really understand how to do a search on google. It's also possible that they don't really read the emails we send for content, but simply take them as greetings. This could explain the lack of reply to our questions.

What to do?