Texas-bound!

[ Djougou, Benin ]

Well friends, I suppose I’ve got some big news: I’m coming to Texas for two months!!

I found a crazy round-trip ticked from Lome to Houston for a grand total of $662US. That’s about 1/3 of the usual lowest price. Crazy. So I’m planning to take a two month mental health break, visit friends and my ailing mother, and perhaps even do a bit of work for $$.

We’ll see.

In the meantime, I’m’ trying to rush out this post because my power supply died YET AGAIN. I have visited the local electrician so many times over the past couple of months I’ve gotten to know all the old guys who sit around shooting the breeze. Repairing it one final time will be tomorrow’s task, as I head back to Togo on Wednesday.

(A bit of irony: I’m heading to Lome to fly out unexpectedly, and in Lome awaits a care package I organized before Christmas. Contents? A new power supply for my computer.

Anyway, the electrician himself is camera shy, don’t know why, but you can see his genius work, which involves re-purposing the connectors of wrist-watch bands as contact pins. You’ll see.

In the meantime, I hope to see some of you Stateside (I’ll be in Houston and Dallas, if all goes as planned). Please drop me a line if you’d like to meet up (so far I have no transportation, so you may have to drive!)

A bientôt,
—jim

The local electrian's shop first thing in the morning, after they unpack the necessities from the small locked room where they're piled up every evening. The morning sun is cool, pleasant and the tradesmen take their time getting started, over coffee, meals, and conversation.
82048051_2822100777811823_2600598329746259968_n

Directly adjacent is an iron-works shop, with guys perpetually welding and hammerinig thinigs into shape. Across the street is the city's busiest market--and as usual you can get damned near anythinig you could want. (Except dark chocolate...I have been CRAVING dark chocoloate.)
82333582_2822101334478434_7508277478280921088_n

Here's a close-up view of the stripped-down connector piece. This is the proprietary bit and two of those five pins have to make contact wtih a very badly designed inset on the computer body. The pins are spring loaded, and only one of them was making contact.
82048024_2822101264478441_3833909385772400640_n

I brought him this paper, and a youtube video showing the proper amperage and voltage. The problem is the original pins had lost the spring loading (except one) and no longer made contact...
83120783_2822100784478489_3936738582240165888_n

So he tried to fix it as-is once, and failed. Then told me to give him the night to think about it. The next day he came back excited. Why? Because of this...
81825096_2822100951145139_7791772953636503552_n

The pin used to hold a wrist-band in place for a wrist watch. Spring-loaded on two ends, perfect diameter, nicely conductive.
81807009_2822101037811797_4596748341215232000_n

After a bit of scraping and gluing and soldering, he had it almost done. You've GOT to admit it's ingenious, and it worked like a charm, too. (except he had to redo it a few times because it turned out the springs inside were pretty flimsy. Still, major Kudos...)
82917750_2822101117811789_4821291516372713472_n

A final, gratuitous workplace shot.
82272745_2822101484478419_5228002503869595648_n

And....my second set of bluetooth headphone (purchased in Kara for about $8) died a horrible death. So I splurged for this bluetooth ear-bud set. I wouldn't share the photo normally, but two things are funny. First, all the audible commands (paring, connected, disconnected) are in Mandarin. I've gotten them before--in Nepal--with a Chinese woman's voice speaking English, but this is the first time I've had to learn a bit of Mandarin to understand a tech toy. More entertaining to me is the translational SNAFU for the User Manual. For my fellow programmer friends, you think they actually meant User GUID? I've written lots of code using that variable name after all. Anyway... Namaste, peace out, hope to see some of you freaky freaks Stateside!!!!!
82442410_2822101144478453_4007814660286840832_n

Share On

The Transglobalist
Photographer, cyclist, paraglider pilot, backpacker, skydiver, writer, explorer, musician, hitchhiker, digital nomad, and American dissident.

Old Town Mombasa

September 30, 2024

The Ugandan Loop, Part III

September 16, 2024

The Ugandan Loop, Part II

September 14, 2024

Texas-bound!

Share On

You might also like

Archives

Categories

@Instagram

Read previous post:

Bonne Année (Wedding II)