Love via Skype Webcam and Lynx Mail!

December 14, 2008 - Sunday morning---

Family members in every country, in every state, experience the yearning to gather with the the same loved ones at Christmas, year after year, "like it always has been." When that's not possible, ---when togetherness is the most important gift possible, ---when Christmas spirit literally depends on hearing those voices, seeing those faces, ...what's a family to do?

Well, in the new millenium, we can learn enough about available technology that offers the chance to video-audio transport ourselves across the miles!

For our family, the Internet has opened a window that families of travelers in other eras did not enjoy: realtime webcam phoning!

This morning, Pop-pop and Nana (Steve and I) received a web-net call from our grandson Conor. Because our computer was turned on, while we were elsewhere in the house, we heard the odd music of the Internet ring...something like merry metal bubbles popping...and we ran to 'answer.' Conor wanted to tell us about seeing Santa yesterday, how Santa had "put his beard on" and that his favorite cookies were "candycane cookies" and "gingerbread." He also inquired of his Pop-pop, "Have you been a good boy? Have you been ornery?" The webcamera makes possible snapshots of the streaming video, thus I can share here the twinkle in Conor's eye.

Last night, Kim 'called' us with the great news that a small box of Christmas goodies we'd mailed a week ago had arrived at the Petionville Poste, undamaged and intact. She had already hung the little ornaments she'd found inside, on her homemade Christmas tree, so she turned her laptop camera lens around to the corner of the room to show us.

Christmas trees in Haiti, you ask? ---A few days ago, after a 97-degree workday in the school and clinic, Patrick had slipped out into the neighborhood to hunt for something 'Christmas-y' for their tiny room. When he brought Kim an artificial garland, she hunted down her little sewing kit, retrieved some thread, and tied the garland up in the corner of the room to resemble the branches of a Christmas tree. Last night, the little paper ornaments we'd sent her in the box were bringing the little tree a bit of Kansas cheer. (See photo above.)

The Internet connection between Kansas and Port au Prince is mercurial, at best. Sometimes the connection cuts off completely for days at a time. When it works, Kim and Patrick's single light bulb barely illuminates their faces. The snap shot of Kim, above, resulted from using a flashlight. At least her smile shone through! Other times, the video feed pixilates so dramatically that the callers' faces fracture into Picasso pieces or Monet blurs. Anytime the video is better, I try to 'snap' a still picture. (See above.) The tree pic from last night is as good as it gets.

Often, the audio has a noticeable time lag. Last night the lag was a full ten seconds, making conversation so difficult that we resorted to staring at the camera lens while 'chatting' in text so that our questions and answers made some kind of sense. It's all pretty comic...as last night, when Kim...waiting for our voices to crawl through...placed her eyeballs up to the lens and made faces to pass the time. We'll take it. Pixilation, lag time, making faces...we are 'there.'

The Skype connection from Belleville to Eudora, of course, has no such lag time or pixilation troubles. It's a terrific new advantage to the monthly fees we pay for Internet access, this ability for Pop-pop and Conor-bean to stick their funny tongues out at each other and crack jokes. I guess you could say, it's a gift we discovered out of necessity. Let Skype ring!