We’ve been told there’s no Internet at the hotel in Kumasi (though an unsubstantiated report says the proprietor is “working on it”). The program manager has earnestly stood by his directive that we should experience the Internet the way Ghanaians do, which is to say (if they do at all) at public cafes.

I see the point. You can’t consult much less design for a culture whose particular constraints you do not understand. OK. But this my biggest concern since, as a team with a job to do involving (at least in my particular task) using the Internet as a route to market, this seems like an unfortunate and avoidable self-limitation.

But so it is. To make matters more challenging, we’re told that power cuts out in Kumasi two to three times a day. Many places have backup generators; many do not. So, you can imagine the near-panic I’m in being a creature of connectivity. I’m not proud of it, just laying it out truthfully.

It’s a reversal of the productivity direction I’ve been working towards for years: a near-total online workflow. Sure, I use desktop apps and love a few dearly. But they’re almost all hooked to networked data and have a web-based interface too. Most simply won’t work without a connection. My laptop is about to become an island.

Thinking through how it will actually work has been interesting, though. There are three scenarios, not counting the pipe dream of guest house Internet:

1. Connection at place of work, relatively nearby Internet cafe
2. No connection or very limited connection
3. Machine failure

The first is the most likely, though it still involves long offline periods. It’s pretty easy really: e-mail gets pulled into Mail.app and calendar items into iCal whenever I can connect. NetNewsWire can suck down feeds for offline review.

But that leaves Backpack and Basecamp, two online services I use for personal and project task management. There’s a great offline synch app for Backpack called Packrat, but for Basecamp I’m basically hosed. In a stroke of great timing, my files at Google Docs now live offline thanks to the Google Gears integration it now offers. I compose blog posts in the superb MarsEdit so that’s not a worry. I suppose there are some offline Flickr apps, but that seems like such a hassle. IM, Twitter, virtual worlds: forget about it.

The second scenario is basically the same, only more dire. I suspect I will just abandon e-mail altogether and just compose offline blog posts hoping to cast their bottles into the sea at some point.

The last scenario — total computer death — had me considering bringing two laptops … until the sheer idiocy of hauling all that hardware to Africa brought me to my senses. (Some of my teammates are considering not even bringing one. What!?) When you consider that the closest Apple Store is half a continent and a sea away, you basically realize that letting go is easier than fighting it. If the MBP dies, my hipster PDA takes over.

If this particular calamity should come to pass I’ve loaded up a USB key with a bunch of portable apps so that I can at least fake the semblance of a personalized workspace at a public terminal. Loading critical data onto the key just isn’t practical, though, so I’ll basically be all dressed up with no place to go.

And yet. There’s an upside to these scenarios. There are still a few apps that require no connection at all. In fact, the distractions of the ‘tubes are actually a hindrance to using them in some ways. I’m thinking specifically of Ableton Live, but also tools like Tinderbox and Scrivener. All these are for personal composition. I can imagine being hunched monk-like in my room hammering out new tunes and chapters, perversely thankful for the isolation.

That is, if the electricity stays on. There are as yet no affordable (or compact) solar-powered solutions for laptop power. So, I have my three MBP batteries.

Add to all this worry that the iPhone 2.0 update and 3G hardware is released the day after I leave and you may understand better why I am obsessing more about Internet withdrawal than microbe invasion.

If this sounds like spoiled geek whining, you’re probably right. But I think this post will be a useful record to return to when the real conditions of daily work present themselves. I’m pretty sure I’m being shortsighted. Which is probably a good summary of my overall preparedness for this adventure.

Not too long now. Departure Thursday.

In late 2001 we were giddy with our first child. The fallen towers and clingy new parent syndrome had pretty much bivouacked us into our condo. The last thing we wanted to do was bring a stranger into the home to be a nanny.

We interviewed a couple of ladies, all eastern European as I recall. Nice enough, all capable of tending a baby, none capable of making us feel good about it. Then we were referred to Margaret Kumi, a classy, soft-spoken mother of many. She was from Ghana.

During the interview Margaret good-naturedly answered my silly list of questions. I remember asking what the first thing she would do if our baby got hurt. She didn’t really understand what I was asking, probably because it was a trick question, and the right answer was so damn obvious. I wanted her to say “I’d call you,” but of course the answer was (and is): make sure the kid’s alright. Later, after we easily hired her, I reflected on how much more that question said about me than her.

Margaret was our full-time nanny for almost five years. We welcomed her into our family and, surprisingly, she did the same for us. We came to know her children, her adopted children, her husband, and visiting relatives from Ghana. We were introduced to baby naming parties, the glutinous food known as fufu, and the sonorous language called Twi.

Her connections with Ghana were strong; most of her family still lived there and she returned twice while she was in our employ. When I was working in Egypt I thought often of making a side-trip to Ghana — a longer flight than cross-country US, but a side-trip in my mind. It never quite worked, mostly because it required a layover in some sketchy Nigerian refueling depot on the FAA might-not-wanna-go-there list.

When I was accepted into the IBM Corporate Service Corps the program manager asked me where I wanted to go and I immediately said Ghana. Margaret and her family were ecstatic. It was a unique moment. You might think this closed some sort of circle, a postmodern Roots with a twist. But it sure didn’t feel like that. It felt like a start — and the wheels I could surely see turning in Margaret’s head confirmed as much.

A few weeks later off the high of the acceptance, during one of our Sunday evening Twi lessons, Margaret and her husband told me that they wanted my help. They had been thinking for a while of returning to Ghana. The country was doing well relative to West Africa and even absolutely for sub-Saharan Africa. Margaret wanted to open a daycare center in Kumasi. She said they had been trying to figure out a way to get back to Ghana while I was there so I could, in her words, help her figure out how to do start a business there. My emotions at this time were a somewhat perfect balance of eagerness and bewilderment.

I am an African know-nothing. I’ve read a few thousands pages on the continent and its history, peoples, and business outlook since I was accepted into the program, but let’s be clear here: I don’t know the first thing about starting a business in the relatively comfortable nest of the USA let alone Ghana. But how could I say no? Margaret is a product of Ghana and her care for my kids derived from that.

There’s another thing though. This isn’t payback. My desire to help Margaret isn’t what many characterize as Western guilt about Africa. I have no colonialist baggage; I feel no latent pangs over the slave trade (though you might ask me again after I visit the Middle Passage embarkation points). It’s more personal than that. Margaret came to America for a better life, remitted part of her earnings to her family in Kumasi as best she could, and then, because of mature governance and a world eager to help, she’s now afforded an opportunity to return home. It’s rare and, though our lives will be the lesser if it happens, so very right.

Margaret told me last week that she’s secured a plane ticket and will be there when I am. I couldn’t be happier.

It’s an interesting thing to reflect on this July 4 weekend. I’m proud of my country — and my company — for putting me in a position to help.