News from the under-island

Another week spent working in Tonga and things were still good. Monday was a holiday because it was the king’s birthday. So instead of going to work, I went out to see the island. I went with a number of other people in a big flat bed truck. We saw every tip of the island and plenty of places in between. We went to this incredible underground cave that has a series of fresh water pools. The best part was that we brought candles that we placed around the pools and swam and jumped of rocks. The ancient Tongan rock structures were a nice addition to our tour. A nice holiday, then we got busy. I actually did some work that second week.

At TonFon, Fa’e and I were able to see a monitoring machine go down and help them diagnose the problem. Such are the ways of work at a telecommunication company. I was able to use some of the information I learned from my networking class and troubleshoot the computer. The information I learned actually was useful! Also at TonFon, I was able to see one of the employees that works there fix a mail server that has been giving them problems. It has been constantly going down for that last while now and I learned some of the way that they resolve problems like these. I found it very insightful although I know many people that would rather drink warm salt water. I also helped another employee begin designing an asset database. It is no small task.

The other half of the week I worked at TongaSat. There I was able to start working on the program that I was sent to Tonga to complete. I spent my time analyzing the code from the previous program and gathering a list of requirement for the project. I concluded that I would have to start over yet still using some of the previous code and aspects of design. In addition, I only went to two dances this week, whereas last week I went to three.