Kids’ Doc in Jos

Until earlier this year, you would not see much if you looked for Jos on Google Earth. It was barely more than a smudge on the very low resolution satellite photos. That has changed, though — now you can count the trees in our yard and see the lines on the tennis court by our house. By loading the Jos data file for Google Earth I’ve made, you can see (in Google Earth) many of the main places in Jos and surrounds: the university, the old, burned out market, the zoo, Hillcrest school, Miango, Bezer home, and many other sites. (Unfortunately, the elevation information isn’t accurate, so you won’t see many of the hills in 3-D.)

If you already have Google Earth installed on your computer, you can simply click on the link above and choose to run the file with Google Earth, or to save the file somewhere and then click on it later to load it into Google Earth.

If you don’t yet have Google Earth, you can get it (free) at http://earth.google.com/download-earth.html. I think it’s about 12 MB in size. The program runs best on a high-speed connection, since it’s constantly downloading photo views as you move around, but you can probably get some use from it even with a dial-up connection.

Once you’re up and running with the Jos data file, you can use the sidebar controls  to turn on or off the various features. For example, you can turn off all the roads, or turn off everything and then select individual features to see. You can double-click on the place marks to go directly to them. Use the mouse to drag the view, the shift-right-arrow and shift-left arrow to rotate, and the shift-up-arrow and shift-down-arrow to tilt the view. You can zoom with the mouse wheel or the page-up and page-down keys. Check the complete list of keyboard shortcuts or view the users’ guide.

Two warnings: first, Google Earth can be very addicting! You can go view the landscape and sites anywhere in the world. Want to see what Kabul looks like? Just type “Kabul” into the search box and off you go. Zoom, pan, tilt, view the hills and roads … and before you know it your evening is gone. The second warning is that all this does take up bandwidth. It probably won’t make a difference unless you’re somewhere like Nigeria where the connections are very expensive. The good news is that Google Earth saves the images onto your computer, so you can go back and see them again without having to download them again.

Have fun!

Spring of Life is the support arm of The ECWA AIDS Ministry (TEAM), with activities including home visiting, voluntary testing and counseling (VCT), and community-building activities. Here is a short (6 minute) video with pictures of the children in the Kids Club, as well as a few shots of the adults’ Spring of Life club meeting. These support groups have played a big role in the lives of our clients, building a sense of community, caring, and teamwork, and helping eliminate the stigma of HIV. The pictures and footage here were shot in 2005. Nearly all the kids were living with HIV at the time, and most are still doing well, with many on antiretroviral therapy.

(Click on player to start. If your connection is too slow for this video, see the low resolution version instead or press pause on the player, wait until the video finishes loading, reaching 100%, then press play again.)

Son-in-law David’s birthday as Thursday, but as he was away at a medical workshop, we celebrated his birthday yesterday. It was fun and low-key, with a game of Ticket to Ride before dinner, then watching “The Princess Bride” after dinner and the birthday cake. It’s nice we get to have birthday celebrations now and then, isn’t it?

I had my colonoscopy today and it was perfectly normal, so no need to make an unplanned trip out of the country for more studies. Thanks to those of you who prayed for my state of mind these past few days.

There is an email going around from “Rev. Mike Blyth” claiming that we are selling some puppies. Actually, they’re free, you just have to pay $300 for shipping. Do you smell a rat? You should, if you know us. For one thing, the author of the email can’t spell. For another, I’m not a “Rev.” But, most of all, never respond to an email asking for money, from us or anyone else, unless you have a really good way of verifying it. But I’m sure you all already know that.