A few years ago we become a Mac family.  We own so many Apple products in our house its sometimes a little crazy! Needless to say our poor PC has been a little neglected - and by that I mean almost never used- these last few years.  Kingsley (the System Administrator in our house) has been feeling a little guilty about having it just sit around not being useful.  When we booked our trip to Sri Lanka he came up with a crazy idea to bring the massive desktop computer with us to give away to someone who could use it.  For the record I was not too supportive of this idea as the screen was massive and the desktop machine alone weighed almost 50lbs.  But Kingsley was determined so we packed it in our bags and hauled it to Sri Lanka.

When we arrived at our hotel Sri Gemunu I spoke with the owner about perhaps donating it to a non-profit or local school.  He took our request very seriously and contacted one of the Ministers in Parliament to find the proper placement for our PC.  They wanted to find a remote village school with no computer but one with a power supply to be able to run the computer. It took about 2 days to find the perfect spot - I am sure lots of work went on behind the scenes to arrange everything and for that we were very grateful.  With the right political connections and using the proper channels we felt very good about where the computer would go and how it would be used.

We had no expectation of actually visiting the school but the Minister arrived at our hotel one morning with his driver, and off we went to deliver the computer to the village school.  It was a little awkward as the Minister was in formal attire and Kingsley and I were in our beach clothes, but that is just part of the adventure of traveling on the Lynn tour!!

We drove about 30 minutes to the school and received one of the warmest welcomes we could ever image.  125 kids (grade 1-5) were lined up on either side of the walkway clapping and cheering as we walked into the school yard.  It was very emotional, I was choking back tears as we walked along.  We were then formally greeted by the teachers and principle and participated in a tea ceremony.  We were told the kids were so excited to receive a computer and how helpful it will be to teach them many skills which are so vital in the world today.

Overall it was such a fantastic experience and the lesson I took away from the whole thing was that even something that seems so insignificant can have a big impact.  We were hoping to find 1 person who might get good use out of our computer and we found 125 beautiful kids who will now be able to enjoy learning new and vital skills.

An excerpt from a thank you email from the Minister:

It is indeed a great pleasure meeting both of you, and I thank you for taking all the trouble to bring the computer to Sri Lanka and donating same for students in need.

World has become a better place for humankind because of people like you. Surely we are looking forward to meeting you again and shall arrange to send the pictures earliest possible.

Trust you had a safe journey back and I remain with best regards.