“How do you feel?” This was one of the most common questions a lot of my friends and family asked me upon my return from Huajuapan after setting up our computer lab. I told them I felt happy, satisfied, tired, excited and relieved. But above all, I was overcome with a really strong sense of gratitude. A lot of hard work went into making the lab setup successful and I would like to take some time to thank everybody that contributed.
First of all, I would like to thank the people of Huajuapan. This may sound like a cliche, but we wouldn’t have been able to do this without them. When the parents of the school heard we were bringing computers, they built a lab, brick by brick, by hand. Every single day, they brought us home cooked meals. In more ways than one, they helped lay the foundation for our lab.
![Huajuapan lab](https://www.kidsoncomputers.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/lab-700x525.jpg)
Next, I would like to thank everybody at the school. While we tried to minimize the disruption, I am afraid we failed. They didn’t complain, instead they always greeted us with smiles. To top it off, they threw us a party that I will never forget.
Then, I would like to thank all of our donors. People donated money, computers, keyboards, mice, printers and much much more.
I would also like to thank FedEx. They helped us ship all of our equipment completely free of cost a pretty long way.
Edubuntu, Gnome, GCompris, vlc, Firefox, remastersys – these are just a handful of the open source packages we used for the lab. We are deeply grateful to the free/open source software community for producing such wonderful products that will help train the next generation.
Personally, I would also like to thank my employer Mozilla for providing me the time away from work to set up the lab. Seeing as I had only joined at the beginning of the month, their understanding underlined one of the main reasons why I am so proud to work here – a keen sense of community and service to the community.
Last, but not the least, I want to thank the team that worked so hard to make this happen. In no particular order:
Manuel Crisógono Narváez Acevedo (He is the principal of the school and an administrator par excellence. Without him, I don’t think any of this would have happened)
Hermes Ojeda Ruiz
Blanca Santos Cruz
Serena Robb
Thomas Peters
Stormy Peters
Alex Mayorga Adame
Dan Anderson
Don Wierbilis
Ramona Gonzalez Garcia
![Huajuapan team (Dan, Thomas, Stormy, Alex, Ragavan, Hermes, Manuel)](https://www.kidsoncomputers.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/team-700x525.jpg)
One would be hard pressed to find a team so dedicated, passionate and committed to a project. You guys (and girls) rock! 🙂
Thank you.
Hi Stormy & Team!
Congratulations on getting the first lab set up!! I hope there are many to follow! Great job, I know how thrilled those kids must be.
Keep up the amazing work!!
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