Many immigrants here in the DC-area dream of sending computers back to their family, friends and neighbors in their home country. A friend of mine here in Takoma Park, Yacouba Sanogo, asked me for help in sending 10 computers back to his home country of Burkina Faso. For less than half the price of a single new iMac computer, I helped this person buy 10 Windows XP computers to send back home. The total cost? Less than $500 from PCRetro.
Not only that. When I went to the PCRetro store in Beltsville, each one of those 10 computers was booted up to make sure it was in excellent working condition. Laura Ambrusko, the store manager, could not have been more helpful. These computers came complete with keyboard, mice and power cords, too.
What worked especially well for my friend is that these computers are all fairly small and light (sometimes called “small form factor”), so the shipping charges he’ll incur will be less burdensome. He won’t be shipping monitors to Africa. The recipients of this donation of computers will need to find monitors themselves.
All in all, I’m very grateful that PCRetro does the work they do. Somewhere in Africa some family that I will never meet will be using a computer that I picked up from the PCRetro store in Beltsville. If I had the time and money I would accompany these computers to Africa and sit down beside the recipients to give them a tour of their computers. I don’t have the time and money to do so, but I can imagine making that trip. For me, that’s reward enough.
(The blogger works as the public geek at the Takoma Park Maryland Library and is an adjunct professor of education at American University, where he teaches a graduate class in educational technology. He can be reached at pshapiro@his.com)
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