A long account of my activities

I have not spent much time in Tonga, yet I have discovered that I love the place. This is not a surprise. I enjoy the island life and culture and felt quite at home in Tonga. I have two main internships and I am assisting Fa’e with his project. Each internship project is quite unique in its responsibilities, the working environment, the coworkers, and even the companies. This truly makes this opportunity tremendously beneficial.

TongaSat:
My primary internship is for TongaSat, a small agent of the government that controls satellite slots. I am working on completing a computer program that extracts satellite data from desired Access databases and exports the data as well as needed calculations and formatting into a simple Excel spreadsheet. This program has been partially written using Visual Basic. The office environment at TongaSat is very formal and traditional, yet enjoyable. My coworkers at all extremely helpful and friendly creating a wonderfully comfortable atmosphere to learn and work.

TonFon:
My secondary internship is for TonFon, which is a company owned by Shoreline Group – essentially owned by the Crown Price of Tonga – which is one of the two telecommunication providers for all of Tonga. It primarily distributes cable channels and internet bandwidth as well as cell phone services. At TonFon, Fa’e and I are assisting the network and mainframe operators and administrators. Also, we are aiding the field technicians in resolving and fixing customer network problems. The working atmosphere at TonFon is much different that TongaSat for obvious reasons. TonFon is a lab or a technical facility while TongaSat is an office. This is reflected in the employees at TonFon as they busily walk in and out executing orders or carrying equipment. However, the mood at here is more relaxed and laid back. Both places give me different experience.

Chamber of Commerce:
The last internship, that I am not actually doing but merely assisting Fa’e on, is for the Chamber of Commerce. The Chamber is a small volunteer based organization that helps unity many of the businesses here in Tonga. For them we are updating one of websites and redesigning it a bit and for the other website we are adding some rather large additions to it to increase its content. This project is independent and flexible. I am not really doing any of the actually html coding, however, I am providing ideas and assistance in the design and implementation of the project.

First week:
The first week was very enjoyable yet still effective. I was actually sick for about half that time recovering from some weird throat disease. Fortunately, it did not have a lasting impact upon my progress. The first week at TongaSat I spent looking over the code for the program and learning Visual Basic, as I had not known that programming language before. At TonFon I did a number of things: Fa’e worked on the initial stages of a huge asset database; we followed a field technician around and helped in fixing computer connection problems that people were having; we were shown many of the essential components of the companies (or even nations) computer network and were able to see them be worked on and altered; and we learned about different software for the servers and the advantages and disadvantages of the different types of servers. At the Chamber of Commerce what I help Fa’e with was getting him started with the website updates, which includes: sorting out difficulties with getting the connection information to connect to the host site; reminding him of the basics and essentials making and updating a website; and working with the stakeholders in obtaining what they want and need from the websites.

All in all, the first week has gone very successfully excluding my illness. I have accomplished a lot and learned even more. I am getting into the daily life of Tonga and keeping very busy with work and other personal responsibilities, yet still enjoying some Tongan dances and festivals.