Sarah phones home

I was sitting in bed reading the New York Times on my laptop when Sarah walked in. Sure is a very nice woman who is a nurse's aide and also, I kind of knew this ,Ethiopian as are many of the aides in this hospital.

At some point on persuasion turned to computer can do, actually I remember she was pointing to the video camera that I had brought in to allow me to make video calls to my friend's and I was discussing how you would make a video call. Somehow the subject turned to Skype which is one of the ways that I use to make video calls.

 

Sarah wondered if she could use Skype to call her friend in Ethiopia and
that was very simple. I went to Google and looked up the country code for Ethiopia and then dial the number. The call didn't work the first time because I refuse to believe that a cell phone number would start with the numeric prefix 911. Especially on . With a little correction we immediately reached her friend and she was able to have a nice conversation to my laptop and to Skype’s output lines into the Ethiopian cell network.

During and following that conversation I learned two things, first of all Sept 11 New Year's Day in the Ethiopia and second that Sarah had been trying for much of the day to call her friend using a conventional international calling card and because it was New Year's Day had never been able to get through which, of course, had not prevented the card from consuming significant amounts of money.

Before I leave the hospital I will teach there out of such set up Skype and specifically the free calling feature which would enable her to talk to her sister's laptop backup.