the gambia - Ina Disguise

The Gamebia Project Update

March 20, 2017 No Comments

I wish that this post was going to contain good news, but the project is not going well at this point.

Scuppered by limited funds, I am scratching together the funds to continue as I was sold a bad batch of computers, at this point if I am successful I will bring the project to break-even at this end.

My protege in the Gambia, who told me that he knew what he was doing, seems to not know what he is doing at all and is now only in communication once every twenty four hours to ask when the next computers are coming rather than getting on with his end of the project.

Despite my own lack of funds I have sent the following items to The Gambia:

Two PC tablet computers, which were intact when they left here, well packed with chargers. One arrived broken, and has been sold to provide 3000 dalasi (£60) to provide immediate assistance to the recipient.
A digital camera, capable of producing video plus cables, batteries, charger and SD card
A condenser microphone for recording interviews and connector cable
A multi adapter to enable several different items to be used with the tablet
An SD reader, in case any of the cables get lost or sold
Three memory sticks, to assist with transferring information should mobile broadband be too expensive
A speaker, to enable testing of the material before sending to me for editing
A mini to usb cable for tethering, but this is now free because the recipient figured out how to get the tablet online despite the expense
An SD card, unspecified

The speaker was taken by the recipient’s brother on the first night, and the SD card went to the recipient’s boss as he had provided loans to the recipient. He has failed to update me on the other items, and so I am unable to report how many of the others he has lost or sold. I included two tablet computers, since I was aware the recipient has constant financial difficulties as this is why he started talking to me in the first place. This should leave sufficient equipment for him to start a channel on youtube, a blog and procure work from fiverr which would easily provide him with an additional income.

I suggested that as the recipient is very shy, that his somewhat more go-getting brother be the face of the project, and sharpen his presentation skills in addition to making better use of the equipment than selling it. The recipient tells me that in Africa, people expect money before success, which tells you rather a lot about why some areas of Africa are in a constant state of economic failure.

The recipient has not said thank you yet, nor is he staying in communication. Before the parcel arrived he was constantly talking online, he now appears once every twenty four hours and either complains, or asks when his next parcel is arriving. I have told him that unless I see some evidence of the project at his end, no further parcels will be forthcoming, which he has responded to with more complaints and excuses. I set up two email addresses, a youtube channel, a separate account for linkedin, a facebook page with likes and recommended a specific twitter account be created for the project. He appears to have struggled with all of this, and now seems not to have understood any of the conversations we had prior to my sending out the equipment.

I have also given instructions for handling the project, and no attempt seems to be being made to actually carry them out. Instead I read messages indicating that he does not know what he is doing at all, and is not really trying to make the thing work.

As you can see, things are not going well so far. From what appeared to be an intelligent and serious person who wanted to self-develop and fund his enormous family, we have a whinging creep who is now trying to say just enough to get more equipment without doing any actual work. I am not at all happy with this so far.

Still, I did this with the full knowledge that it was possible that he would just sell all of it, in which case I need not bother with this silly dude again, so the situation is not beyond saving if the recipient pulls his finger out.

I have been told a story from Germany, which indicated that African workers in Germany managed to work like Germans, and when that project moved to Africa, suddenly forgot how to do it. Perhaps sunshine is to blame, or perhaps the problem is blaming other people when what you really need is a work ethic.

creativity, economics, games, motivation

The Gamebia doing very well

March 4, 2017 No Comments

The Gamebia Everipedia Page

So far, this project has cost a lot of time and money, but I believe that my efforts have not gone in vain, since I have about £600 quids worth of equipment almost ready to head out to the Gambia and another £600 quidsworth awaiting my attention. All for as little money as possible, since I do not actually have any.

The Gamebia facebook Page

At this point, the project is in profit, and has made about £100. This is subject to change as the capital equipment gathering can be quite costly, although my salvage skills have proved extremely useful. So basically I have saved money by learning how to fix a few brands of computer and encountering standard problems that other people do not apparently bother to learn how to fix. You would be extremely alarmed to know how easy it is to break into your computer, for example. You might want to look at that.

The Gamebia google plus Page

Trying to explain social media to somebody who has only seen it on a mobile phone is also odd, especially as I decided fairly early on that social media was of limited use for Ina. I have amassed a bit of knowledge along the way though, although losing the old blog was a tremendous blow as I was storing a lot of information on it. Even if you are paying someone to manage your material, you still have to back it up because people are stupid.

The Gamebia linkedin Page

Also, trying to explain to the future owner of The Gamebia that this stuff is not actually mine, is quite interesting since I have set it up so far. There are things I cannot do, but what I have done I have put into his name, since I will be letting go of the project once it is into a good and hopefully profitable routine.

In conclusion, the project is thus far going well and attracting some enthusiasm, although we cannot get started on the actual work until the first package arrives in the Gambia. There are a few more things I can do, such as putting a cat video on the Gamebia youtube page to get the partnership sorted out, but mainly I seem to have taken up computer salvage so far.

Catching up with artwork for World of Interiors is high on the priority list right now – I will be in April’s edition, which will be out this month.

economics, politics

Thank you Boris!

February 15, 2017 No Comments

Thank you Boris. At least somebody does what they say on the tin.

My friends in the Gambia are over the moon to be rejoining the commonwealth.

Furniture is up next after I get these computers out to The Gambia to get the project off the ground.

Good luck with South America

Kisses,

Ina

creativity, economics, motivation

Spent £100, gave £50,000

February 8, 2017 No Comments

Would you spend one hundred pounds in order to give someone else £50,000?

The Gamebia project, as it is now known, has costs and benefits.

The costs are to me, and once I have completed all tasks, the costs are going to be between £0 and £100.
The benefits are to an individual/ family in the Gambia, and will be the equivalent in local money of between 5 months and 4 years of the average Gambian wage. We worked out how much this would be for one modest person in the UK, and this worked out at £50k.

The reason for the disparity is as follows:

The person I am doing this for may decide to sell some of the equipment I am salvaging and keep only the laptop, which will yield about 5 months of local wages at the value of the equipment before I fixed it. It means that the postage was a bit pointless, but if this is what he has to do to survive, this is fair enough. I am not doing this to control anybody.

Assuming that I manage to fix as many machines as possible, the repaired value is 4 years of Gambian average wage, again quite a lot, but how many local people can afford this?

In the event that he decides to use the equipment to get other people used to computers and working, it will mean that he can use sites like fiverr, clickworker, youtube and hubpages to establish a presence online and create some passive income – income derived from work done once, and viewed many times. It also means he can be supported towards the ultimate aim of the project, which is to create a small gaming company producing visual novels, which are not all that cost effective to produce for most people here, but would make a very good income there. This makes the potential value of the project, provided that he puts the time in, which I believe he will, limitless. I reckon it will take a full year of fairly intensive work to get to the point of handing over control of new projects. In the meantime, I will have a team of people who can use work I can provide to train and earn at the same time, which seems to me to be mutually beneficial as I will be able to make a lot more novels in a short space of time. In addition to this I get to learn how to fix a host of new machines I would not otherwise have looked at.

So, all in all I believe this to be a worthwhile way of spending some time. My friend was wondering why on earth I would do it, and I think my friend in the Gambia was wondering if he was a ‘bumster,’ which I believe is a local term for gigolo. Not at all, I just thought limitless was a lot better than 5 months wages.

As a caring person who believes strongly in the value of opportunity, and as someone who gets by on almost nothing as a rule, I think I am spending my time wisely.

So, tell me, would you spend £0-100 on giving someone else £50,000?

creativity, economics, games

New Project – The Gambia

February 3, 2017 24 Comments

I just opened the studio after a three week hiatus whilst I got the computer games off the ground, only to find I had left a heater on. Not good.

Family stress is likely to be intense over the next six months as I try to preserve my mother against all odds due to the most unreliable friend I have ever had. The fact that this ‘gentleman’ was supposed to be a pillar of the community has just made his common-as-muck behaviour far far more expensive.

Being me, I have decided to make this the springboard for yet another project. It is a salvage operation which is designed to help generate some future income for a community in the Gambia. Not strictly a charitable act, since if the games are successful, this will give me an enthusiastic crew of people to work on future pieces of work.

For those who don’t get it – this is how to make the most of the world the way it already is, and make it sustainable for a population across the globe to actually survive. The ‘liberal’ sentiment that has you demanding more refugees to reduce your income apparently does not understand the concept of ‘labour specialism’ or the benefits of economic variety.

Were I to want to move to Africa, so far I would move to Morocco, which is a bit like the Europe of the 1930s in terms of economy. Ironically, I was made more welcome there than I was in London. As a Scot, this is not entirely surprising but it goes to show that struggling people are a whole lot more welcoming to certain people than people who believe that they have earned the right to be mean-spirited, self protective and bad mannered.

As someone who has worked hard all my life, to so far have next to nothing, with what I have left about to be taken to pay for my comparatively secure mother because of the inaction and snobbery of a lazy old man, it would seem strange to most people that I would choose to use my remaining time to benefit a community in a country I will probably never be able to afford to actually visit. My friend found this very strange, until I pointed out to him that it is in my nature to be practical and helpful before I think about my welfare, at which point he remembered that this is indeed the case.

From an economic perspective, it is most interesting already how people can be financially oppressed by something as simple as lacking a postcode or secure mail service. I am having to come up with ingenious ways of getting around a system in which you can send ten mobile phones in secure parcel, only to find that only three are in the parcel by the time they arrive.

As for the costings from this end, there is a subtle bidding war between parcel companies that has expressed itself via facebook and twitter. The cost of sending my parcel is going down by the day, via adverts that look as if they have randomly appeared on my timelines. We have even automated bidding wars.

Anyway the first two games are going well. I have a strong concept for both, and I think Wolfe, in particular, will be delighted at what I have come up with in terms of infogaming. It is a lot of work for one person.

Ina