Laptop Fixed!

Defying the odds - and certainly my expectations - the laptop went into the shop today and came out fixed. I was prepared to kiss the laptop goodbye, at a minimum for the trip here anyway. Computers are expensive here - even more so than in the States - and not many people have them here, so the options for getting computers fixed are few.

As is typical around here, everyone's got a friend they know who can help. Sometimes that works. Other times, not so much. Today I brought the laptop into a tiny office on a small one way street in the capital, Roseau (pronounced Ro' zo). Inside, a man named Terry, who was a friend of a friend, said that for a deposit of $50 EC (Eastern Caribbean dollars, which are worth $2.6 EC for every US Dollar), he'd take a look and see if he could help. I asked when he could get to it, and he pointed to a shelf of computers awaiting his attention and said it could be a few days.

With a little more talking and pleading he said he could take a look by 11AM. This is where the "island time" mentality works for you because the others in line would just have to wait. I thanked him, wished him good luck and headed off for the local internet cafe. The kids and Alison headed to the local library in Roseau, which is a small building right next to the ocean. It was built and donated by Andrew Carnegie just after the turn of the 20th century. The library was small, with 2 rooms, but it offered something that very few Dominicans have: books!

After a couple hours at the internet cafe, I joined the others, and we headed off to have lunch in the city's beautiful botanical gardens. Just as we had finished lunch and were prepared to leave town, I got a call from Tony telling me my computer was fixed. I was overjoyed.

It turns out that one of the ports for my laptop's memory had stopped working, which meant that my laptop wasn't able to function. While Terry didn't have the part, he helped me find a place that did. Some running around the town was required as I tried to track down the necessary part and have it installed.

A sense of calm began to sink in as I booted the laptop up once we returned to Mero. We're back in action!