Our Silver Precious
A Journalist’s Diary
Following an experience of kindness on the buzzing streets of Accra and a dry spell in the process of digitizing my handwritten Ghana journal, heavy computer-related thinking resurfaced a few memories about the inanimate friend that kept me company that month, the MacBook that sucked me into the Apple world.
The Valued Tool
I sit on my chair in my dormitory room. It is a Thursday evening. I see my laptop in front of me. An almost all-aluminum silver machine; it is on. I see the lights shining through the keyboard; a low and white light. This, the darkness of the room, and the background light of the screen create a relaxed atmosphere. My view goes up to the screen. I see nothing else than the screen.
That’s how I wrote about that MacBook at Yale in 2007 when the machine was about a year old and had served me dutifully for the day-to-day tinkering of undergraduate studies.
It’s bad writing from today’s perspective, but I value those lines for what they represent. My writing improved because of those “bulldog days of summer” as the program’s slogan referred to the seven weeks that influenced me more than any experience in my life up to that time.
Reading those lines today shows me also that this MacBook changed my relationship with technology.
From frustrations about a piece of technology, the MacBook’s predecessor, which I fought into obedience, the 2006 MacBook told me: “You can trust me,” which created a welcoming atmosphere that made it easier to be creative.
I used the above snippet from 2007 to launch into a scene that explained my “vertical heritages,” the things that form the roots of who I am and where I come from.
I spare you from reading more of that 2007 me. But reading how I incorporated my computer into that essay shows me that a laptop had turned from a valuable tool I eyed with suspicion to a valuable tool I valued.
You Could Always Leave It With Us
It wasn’t even a question.
My MacBook joined me on my journey to Ghana a year after Yale.
Even though large chunks of my writing in those days began on paper, I knew I would need computational help. And I’d rather trust my silver precious than whatever I would find at the office.
Besides the inevitable transformation of analog writing into digital writing, I wanted a safer place for images (a wise precaution if you recall what happened to my camera) and a reliable communications tool (not anticipating I wouldn’t be able to connect my laptop to the Internet).
I had neither planned nor foreseen that my precious was quickly turning into our precious.
The limited computer resources at the Trust and the various places we branched out to for our newsroom needs resulted in my offering much-appreciated support.
I received file after file that would form the finished newspaper, trying to bring order to a workflow that didn’t deserve that name.
The editors were appreciative.
When I had finished my first article on the presidential election speech, both editors longed to read it. No, wait. It was I who had to read it to them.
We sat on Theo’s (one of the editors) patio, one of the key places for our newsroom. The laptop in front of me, I read, relaxing the nervous tingles sentence by sentence as I noticed the smiles and satisfied eyes of the two men opposite me.
I don’t remember what they said when I had finished, but they were smiling and laughing with satisfaction and asked if they could see.
I passed the laptop across the table. The two editors looked over the writing a little closer. Eventually, they handed it back.
“Great laptop, Flo,” is the non-verbatim bottom line of what Theo said when his associate handed the computer back to me. “It would come in handy here, you know. You could always leave it with us when you leave.”
While that’s not verbatim, Theo was also joking and giggling while the laptop crept closer to my hands again. His friendly laughter, however, was disturbed by a metallic thud and subsequent scraping.
“Oh, I’m sorry. Let’s see. There, barely a scratch,” the editor said while inspecting the dent and scratch that now decorated the lid of my valued companion.
The sharp-edged stone that weighed down the slips of paper used by the editors to write their stories on had stopped the laptop halfway across the desk.
Analog chaos translates to digital chaos
Writing by hand was in high fashion at the Trust. Both editors wrote everything on paper. It fell upon us volunteers to transcribe.
That’s a task we partnered up for often. One person read the cramped handwriting, trying to decipher the squiggly ballpoint lines on the oddly shaped paper slips. Narrow and long they were, looking like an oversized roll of recycling toilet paper.
We had an assortment of those each week and received them preferably only hours before the printing deadline.
I was the hobby cryptographer and read to Susannah, my British colleague who was much faster at typing.
When my reading skills failed, we huddled over the paper slip and tried to solve the problem together. When that failed, we shyly turned to the editors for clarifications.
Inefficient. Neither of us could comprehend why we were still writing newspaper stories by hand. I’m all for protecting the lost art of writing by hand, but there’s a time and place for everything.
Once the analog chaos was sorted, the digital chaos took over.
The order I created on my laptop’s hard drive didn’t do us much good because it was not only not connected to the Internet but also not connected to the printing press, aka the various computers at the copy shop, which the employees there used to design the newspaper’s page layouts.
I had brought a thumb drive that I set up as a go-between. It connected to all sorts of machines, the one desktop at Theo’s place, various internet cafe machines, and old Windows copy shop desktops as well as a couple of iMac G3s I used with fascination when at the copy shop I needed something to type and my laptop was busy receiving Susannah’s transcriptions.
I don’t recall how often I wiped that drive, for every time I inspected its contents, files had doubled, quadrupled, or otherwise multiplied. Luckily, whatever virus it had attracted was harmless for my laptop, and the copy shop workhorses refused to take it, my signal to reformat and retransfer the files they needed. Every time, I was wondering how we would do this if I had not brought my laptop on this trip.
Travel Worries
I didn’t leave the laptop behind. Obviously.
Though, there was a moment at the airport when I feared the worst.
My second brush with the Kotoka International Airport was weird from start to finish.
I was wearing contact lenses that day. When I approached the security checkpoint, the guard said something like: “What’s wrong with your left eye, it looks a bit weird.”
I didn’t quite know how to respond to that, but wasn’t given much of an opportunity anyway.
“Please follow me and step into this room,” he followed up, pointing to an open door.
Okay, I thought. That’s new. The guard continued to make chitchat that I don’t recall and eventually inquired about money.
“You have Ghanian coins and bills on you,” I remember the proud guard inquiring with a confused look. I don’t recall his precise words, but the oddity of our encounter has stuck till today.
He eventually seemed satisfied and sent me to the gate — after I had explained that the reason for having some loose change still in my possession was that I had no opportunity to spend it, didn’t know exactly how much I needed for the day, and keeping the change could come in handy if I returned one day.
The slight worries, which had built up during that meeting, subsided in the hour or so I had to kill at the airport.
But the boarding process brought them right back.
A commotion formed at the gate, wilder than the usual madness. As the line started to clear, I could see the reason: a large scale stood in the middle of the room, two flight attendants behind it.
Panic. I knew my backpack was heavier than the 7, 8, or however many kilograms Lufthansa allowed — laptop, writing utensils, documents, snacks, and a jacket. I grabbed whatever I thought would fit in the jacket’s pockets, stuffed it in, and approached the scale nervously, with the laptop under my arm, the jacket over the other arm, and deposited my orange backpack to the scale.
I quietly sighed with relief when the flight attendant nodded and let me pass.
That’s all from Ghana for now. I’ll continue to piece together my journal and share more when I have something worth writing about. Later this week, I’ll publish new forest photography here.
