# dWeb travel - the exchanges
supported by APC and APC METF

by Dinesh
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Soon after attending **dWeb**, we are busy organising our annual Anthillhacks event.
Things that hold these events together for us is the culture of APC that we now imbibe. It was my 2nd dWeb conference and strangely I found myself relatively silent
and mostly in the spirit of observation - again. We were set among the tall Redwoods (also metaphorically) where participants were *not* curious about the large stumps or circles of trees around what was a super huge tree that was uprooted. **dWeb** work needed strife and not remorse or reflection of great losses that brought all of us together. We seemed happy for the rafts that help keep us afloat while we worked on keeping the ship afloat.

A birds eye view of the two events - both of them structured as camps so that people live together for a few days - is attempted here:
- dWeb is about the corrective efforts and so is Anthillhacks - both of them structured to experience hope.
- dWeb is about reflecting on where we have come from in the last few decades and how larger interests got usurped by a few even over the short couple of decades while Anthillhacks is about reflecting on where we have come from over the many centuries and how main stream narratives and needs usurp the local narratives and communication needs.
- dWeb brings together diverse people who articulate their issues and community needs while Anthillhacks brings diverse people to a typical community context to articulate issues of low literacy, local connectivity, significance of storytelling and need for participatory processes as a model of a dWeb Community Network.

***DWeb*** - the journey, the people and the location
**discovery and navigation**
the rafts that keep the ship afloat
the culture that keep the rafts afloat
the women that keep the culture afloat

the location is an old scout camp - i was a boy scout - 50 years ago
the location is silicon valley - i lived there - 30 years ago
the location is internet archive - i was there - 3 years ago

***Anthillhacks*** - the journey, the people and the location
**discovery and navigation**
the rafts that keep the ship afloat
the culture that keep the rafts afloat
the women that keep the culture afloat

the location is our old scout expeditions - 50 years ago
the location is bio-diversity valley - over 300 years ago
the location is an internet-independent archive - over 600 years ago

The dWeb principles promise a future that is safer, freer and sustainable.
Anthillhacks contextualises a culture of such promises over eons.
Together, vis-a-vis, the strife is of cultures and technologies.

As IA is to dWeb, the rafts being SSB, Filecoin and other sponsors, the cultures being APC and women being indigenous representations as are Janastu collective, APC and many indigenous representations.

Like they say the devil is in the details.

The long bus ride to the venue opened us to knowing other fellows, experiencing artichoke hearts and local brews. The bus ride back, had the backdrop of unsolved mysteries of mesh networks that resulted in us not wanting to take community networking for granted and to try to make space for residencies and exchanges of fellows from fellow networks.
Soon after we are enjoying resident visitors from Brazil and Anthillhacks even had a number of dWeb participants participate.

And soon after we are experiencing a déjà vu of Libre Mesh staging a protest after years of tantilizing us to setting up of larger network with demanding users - like at dWeb and now at the Anthillhacks event. While at dWeb most users experienced an un-usable mesh network in and around the hacker hall, at Anthillhacks the discovery of packets making loops with no quick way to fix it caused a considerable disruption that we had to rethink many of our community activities, the role of landing pages and local services. More on this in our Anthillhacks - a Community Networks Research and Campaign report.

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A Redwood. PC: Nico Pace, Log Cabin mate and APC tech influencer for COWMesh!


*Strangler* Fig tree from the area. Represents keystone species protected in cultural ritual contexts. It is a symbolic statement of sorts on the way cultural contexts get defined and are protected.

Reserved Forest presents bio diversity at COWMesh region. The forest is growing with vengeance, and got a reserved forest status too, by hiding the ruins of an empire that still continues to influence the stratification of the community in the region. The locational narratives are sidelined by the main stream ones, faster than ever - now, due to the Internet aided information dissemination, the TVs and migration of youth to cities.

Session for students on Pastoralism as sustainable practices. Random photo of screening a film at iruWay - the main campus in the area where COWMesh is deployed.

Session at Anthillhacks connecting groups using Papad, for fragment annotating audio-visual content in a local network, to others who are interested in it.

May the resilient Bamboo bring Strength and Health to us all.
Greetings from Janastu Collective, APC collaborators and the LokaLR team, and the Bamboo tower team of COWMesh community.

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Links: [Anthillhacks lightning talk at dWeb 2019](https://archive.org/details/campdaythreejuly20lightningtalksanthillhacksalocationinclusivefair)
Anthillhacks lightning talk at dWeb 2019. Also more at open.janastu.org/labs/anthill

A day by day blog of Anthillhacks written by a participant
https://contrapunctus.codeberg.page/blog/

An edited video of Anthillhacks https://vimeo.com/795871268
Embedded event of Bamboo tower at Anthillhacks: https://vimeo.com/799968976
A collection of Anthillhacks phtotos: https://photos.app.goo.gl/6vKW1QXwoSTEZASKA

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