When the mouse moves to the right, the arrow moves right

It is remarkable how much information we absorb as children from our
surrounding environment. I can't remember the first time I turned on a
computer or moved the mouse to see how the cursor would react on the
screen. For those of us born in the past 25 or even 30 years, we have
taken our computer skills for granted. Even those who didn't have
computers at home would see one being used in a workplace or at
school.

For many of my Togolese friends, the computer reflects a complicated
and humbling mystery. Not just why it works but how to use it and what
it does. A good friend of mine, an English teacher at a local middle
school, came to my house tonight to begin training sessions on my
computer. He's a very bright man, but one who never had a chance to
use or even observe a computer previously. To him, it was a new world,
a new language, and a new field of study. I didn't know it already,
but English isn't my only native language. There's also computer.

He started by trying to move the mouse. Something so simple to us, but
the cursor darted all over the screen, miss clicking on windows and
dragging selection boxes all over the desktop and he could only wonder
why nothing else was happening. Before coming to Togo, I had never
seen this before. A child in the United States will likely just start
off and running due to hours of watching a parent or a friend do basic
tasks like opening windows or clicking on this so-called 'start-menu'.

I orally helped him navigate to MS Word to practice using the
keyboard. He entered each letter slowly and carefully. I would guess
he managed about 2 gwam for his first sentence before being tired and
ready to finish the lesson. We had spent about 45 minutes reaching
this point. Explaining the idea of windows and basic navigation took
time and each task brought a new wealth of options. "Why do you click
once on that icon, but twice on that one to open?" "When do you use
the right mouse button?"

The computer is difficult because it's tough to learn little by
little. One can introduce a language with "hello" and "how are you",
but sitting in front of a computer throws the user in head first.

Just sit back in your chair and think about all the steps it took just
to read this article. Even the most basic parts take time and patience
to understand.