Marques vs. Electricity (Written 8/11/07)

Note: This is a long one folks....you might want to set aside some time before you read this one. Viewer Discretion is Advised

Now sit down and let me tell you a great tale…a tale that has withstood the test of time and shows how one man would not be deterred by the evil entity known as electricity. This is a tale of perseverance, hope and beating the machine known as the power company. It all began a long time ago, on an island far far away……

The past two days have just been jam packed with stuff to do – I mean its crazy the amount of things I've done in just a small 24 hour period. I'll try to lay it all out for you, but it's been a doozy. So on Friday, we had the final CAT (Common Assessment Task) for Year 12 computers. What this meant is that the task required the students to work on the computer – which meant we needed power for all of Friday. Now one class of Year 12 students successfully completed the task with no problem – they had the test during the first period of the day. The next two periods (period 2 and 3) were my Year 13 classes – so they got to use the computers, no problem. Period 4 was the second of my three Year 12 computer classes and with only 15 minutes left in the class the power went off. Now the power has been going off quite frequently at the school and while we don't know the reason why these blackouts keep happening, they are scheduled. How do we know they're scheduled? Because they're announced on the radio – but neither Kevin, myself or my counterpart listen to the radio so we had no idea about the scheduled blackout. I had previously told me students that if they hear about a blackout on the radio, to tell me – apparently they forgot this little message. So I had to come up with a decision real quick – and my first instinct was to delay the CAT until next Tuesday (because Monday is a holiday, it's Father's Day here) but, in agreement with my Year 12 counterpart and Father Kevin, we decided to keep the kids after school so that they would finish the CAT today. The power was 'suppose' to come back on at 3pm – so we thought we would only be holding the kids for about an hour and a half after school. They were not happy about this arrangement, but then I emphasized to them that if they decided to leave the school they could not retake the test – today was the only day they could do it. Now some students tried to get out of it by telling me that they lived far away and needed to catch the bus, but my counterpart is Samoan so I just brought her in to find out the truth for me – only 2 people actually needed to go home on Friday in order to make the bus. They would then come in on Saturday morning in order to complete their test (one declined this option and decided to do it on Friday). So the power was off from 11am until the end of school which meant no computer classes for those few hours. Fortunately, I had something to keep me busy – the rest of our computer monitors came in before the power went out. So while the power was off I put the monitors in their proper places and (hopefully) this means we will now have all our computers fully functional and working – so we're up to 104 computers for our students and have dedicated labs for the Junior students and the Senior students. So at the end of school at 2pm, the power is still not on so I went to take a shower, eat some lunch and then go to my classroom to read the fantasy football magazine my dad sent me as a birthday gift (NFL, oh how I miss thee). So of course since my room is open I have students coming in periodically asking me if they could go because they're tired and they want to do it tomorrow – but I know that if I let them go they won't be back tomorrow (Saturday) and would have some excuse on Tuesday for why they couldn't come – I wasn't about to cave in to their flimsy excuses. But come 3pm the power still was not on – in the back of my mind though, I knew the power would not be on at 3pm like the radio said but would come back on at 3:30pm (they'll turn it off on time but turn it back on late). So at around 3:15pm I had a lot of students trying to come in and guilt me into letting them go, but I stood my ground that the power would be back on today. Then 3:30pm came and the power was still off – so I was beginning to wonder if I was wrong about the power coming back on. It was at 3:30pm that my counterpart and I decided to let the students go and tell them to come back on Saturday…when at 3:35pm the power suddenly came back on! So after turning the server on and making sure all the computers were functioning, we got the students into the computer labs and was able to complete the CAT on Friday. Thank God, because on Saturday I would not have had the room to hold them and my Year 13 class at the same time.

Now the reason that I showered before the restart of the CAT was because I knew that once the test was done I would need to get to town right away. Well the last person was done with their CAT around 4:30pm which meant that if I took the bus I would be lucky to make it their by 5:30pm on the last bus of the day. Fortunately, Kevin offered to drive me into town so I didn't have to worry about the whole bus deal which was nice. Why did I want to go into town so late you ask? Well its because I wanted to continue working – that's why! This time though, it was working for fun instead of trying to teach people. The husband – Eugene - of one of our APCDs (Assistant Peace Corps Director) – Jackie – was starting a new internet café in town and I have been sort of a technical advisor/sounding board for him over the past couple of months. I have been amazed by the whole process because it was only like a few months ago I talked to him about the idea of creating a new internet café and I told him that it was possible as long as he brought an American business mindset to the deal (which meant better prices, longer hours and better internet speed). It took him a while to find a good place – but the location of the café is perfect, it's right in downtown Apia. It's in the same location as two other very popular internet cafes – so he's basically going toe to toe with his competition right off the bat. The most impressive thing about the café was the fact that the internet speed is truly fast – it felt like broadband instead of just DSL. In fact, the speed is so good that I was able to play YouTube videos without any problem – I can't even do that at the Peace Corps office. So what's the name of this new internet café…it's called Click Net ( www.clicknet.ws ). So on Friday night, I was helping to put the final touches on setting up the operating systems correctly and making sure the look of the cables were nice and basically just helping out anyway I can. This is one of those projects that I could have never seen myself doing a year ago, but I'm so glad I got the opportunity to be part of a brand new business in Samoa – that's why I was more then willing to give up my Friday night to make sure everything was good for the grand opening on Saturday morning. Now Eugene (the owner) basically got this whole internet café setup within a two week time period because he wanted to make sure everything was working properly before the South Pacific Games when a lot of athletes and foreigners will be in-country. If the internet speed holds to being as fast as it is right now, Click Net without a doubt has the fastest internet connection (via SamoaTel) and should easily beat the competition (because the other 2 cafes close at 4:30pm whereas ClickNet will be open till 10pm). I wasn't finished helping with the store until about 11:30pm, so I was absolutely dead tired. Which meant that I just went home and went to bed….

…..just to wake up on Saturday at 7am. Why did I wake up so early? You're just full of questions today! Anyway, I woke up so early to open the computer labs for my Year 13 students. On this Wednesday, they are going to have their one and only CAT of the year, which is a practical/on the computer test which is worth 30% of their overall school grade. So it's a pretty big deal and I felt I needed to give them some extra class time in order to make sure they had a shot at doing well on the actual CAT – this is especially true for the Year 13 class which was not taught by me. Their teacher basically taught them nothing over the past couple of weeks, so I was working from scratch – I can't even begin to tell you how pissed I was that this teacher was screwing these kids over simply because she didn't want to teach the class (although we asked her if she wanted to in the first place, which is why she was selected after Adam left). So for the most part, I have my two Year 13 classes ready but the third Year 13 class REALLY needed help. So I opened the computer lab at 8am and waited for students to show up. At first, they were slow to come in and I thought 'Oh well, if they don't care enough to come then I can't really help them'. Well by 9am, I had almost every Year 13 student who was taking computers in my classroom – I had to open another lab in order to handle the overflow and make sure that everyone had their own computer to work with. Just to reinforce how serious we are about the CAT and to make sure the power doesn't screw with us again, on Wednesday we're going to have all of the Year 13 CATs done before 11am – that way if the power decides to go off again it won't be such a crushing blow like it was for the Year 12. So back to this morning – I was basically running between 2 computer labs helping about 28 Year 13 students…it was madness. Was I able to help everyone? Of course not – but at least I got them started and on Tuesday we can work out as many kinks as possible before the rest test on Wednesday (Electricity permitting). I had the lab open from 8am to 10:50am – at 10:50am I began the process of getting the students out of the lab and shutting down all the computers properly. I got the whole process done by 10:55am and then I went to check on all the other computers in the school to make sure they were all off properly. Why was I being so paranoid? Because at the start of the day I asked the kids when the power was going off again today and they told me the radio said it would be off at 11am. So I got everything shut down properly at 10:58am and then I headed home for a nap and before I got to my front door, the power went off at 11:01am – this time I was ready for it! No nasty surprises this time!

After I was done taking my power nap, I had to head into town and be there by 1pm for the grand opening of Click Net internet café. I pushed it but fortunately I made it to town before the 1pm deadline but in true South Pacific fashion, the ceremony didn't start until 1:30pm anyway. There was an official ribbon cutting ceremony and everything- so it was a pretty nice deal. There were about 20-25 guests and family members, mainly people who had a had in building/realizing the dream of this internet café. Obviously Jackie was there, but Teuila and Kim also showed up as well – but I was the only Peace Corps Volunteer there, which was different but nice. While I got to enjoy the free net for a bit, my main (unofficial) job was to guide folks through the process of being able to log onto the computers through the internet café software Eugene is using and letting them know what options are available to them. It was during this test run that I realized a few kinks still have to be worked out of the system but for the most part it was a relatively smooth opening. After the grand opening, everyone went to Eugene/Jackie's house for a little celebration party and there was a ton of food. Unfortunately, I got full off the sweets and chips they served before the actual meal – I was so full that I couldn't really eat the main meal at the time. This was my first time at Jackie's house even though she lives really close to me (about a 5 minute drive from me) in Sinamoga (Sin-Ah-Mun-Ga). Per the Samoan tradition, I was sent home with a plate of food so that was going to be my dinner for the night. Fortunately, I was able to get a lift to the Peace Corps office from Kim (my country director i.e. Ultimate Boss) because I had one more event to complete in town before my day was done.

I arrived at the Peace Corps office around 5:30pm and I had to wait until at least 6:30pm before I would start heading to my last event of the day. So I spent a little time on the net at the office – and it just felt slow compared to Click Net's speed. Once you've been spoiled with good internet speed, it's hard to go back! Got a few things done on the net and then had dinner before I left the office at around 6:45pm. Now there were two competing events for the 7pm timeslot – I could go to the farewell party for Charles or I could go to the Rhema Bible College graduation (where I had 3 friends graduating). Since I didn't want to partake of drinking tonight and these 3 friends only graduate once, I decided to go to the Rhema graduation which was held in the big hall in the middle of town – about a 25 or 30 minute walk from the Peace Corps office. So I left at around 6:45pm and arrived at the hall at 7:05pm and the place just jam packed full of people. So Rhema is a local bible college which houses students from all over the world learning about God's word. The three friends I had graduating were Junior, Viv (Samoans) and Erin (New Zealand) – so a pretty diverse group. With well over a 100 people at this event, it felt like a big deal and almost everywhere I looked I saw people from Peace Chapel so I was glad I was able to come here and join in supporting my friends. Junior, Viv and Erin all completed their 2 year degrees so they got to be in the full red graduation garb and looked pretty snazzy. The oddest thing happened during the keynote speech, though. With the Prime Minister sitting in the front row of this event, the power went off to the entire building. Now we know that it was an isolated blackout because the hall was the only place without power – all the other buildings around the hall still had power. The power was off for a good 30 minutes and it was just funny to realize that as powerful as the Prime Minister is, he couldn't just call someone up and get the power turned back on right away? Anyway, the blackout bug just continues to follow me wherever I go – it's quite scary really. I think I may have super powers I didn't know about. Eventually the power did come back on and we were able to get through the rest of the graduation program without a hitch.

After the graduation, I was tired and was able to get a rid home which is always nice. Now here I sit, trying to stay awake so that I can finish this blog entry. It has felt and been a long day – fortunately, I have Monday off which is nice for relaxation but the stress comes back on Tuesday. Right now, the score is Marques (1) vs. Electricity (2). Can I beat this unstoppable force? Stay tuned

BTW, ClickNet will also be a true cafe in that it will serve fresh coffee and food products to patron. But the coolest side business is the fact that in the back is a game room where he's going to set up two game consoles and have people purchase time for playing the system - again competing with another business that is right across the street from him. The best part about the game console area is that it only has a PS2 in it right now - there was also going to be an Xbox console as well, but just like its bigger brother the Xbox 360 - it was broken and wouldn't work. Long live Sony!